


Clarity

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:48:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8467711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)





	1. Jean-Luc

**Author's Note:**

> The muse likes suggestions. This was based on Silverfairy22's -- one of them, anyway.

He found a lounge chair apart from the resort, and glanced around. It wasn’t one of the busier resorts on Risa, but it was still popular. However, at the moment he had this section of beach to himself. There was a bank of dense foliage on his right, partially blocking the view down the long curve of yellow sand. To the left, there was a broad sandy expanse peppered lightly with people in varying states of undress, none closer than half a kilometer. He dropped the bag on the sand, adjusted the lounger, and settled on his back, closing his eyes. The sun’s rays gently warmed his bare legs and chest while he started to doze. 

He opened his eyes a while later, at the sound of a bare foot sinking in sand and being pulled free. And another slow step, and another. A woman was walking by -- she was striking, dressed in translucent white billowing fabric that flew about her slight body in the onshore breeze. His breath caught for a moment. She turned her head -- her dark eyes glistened, and though she was easily ten paces away, the tragedy written in her beautiful face was obvious. 

He was out of the chair in a second. She stopped walking, in surprise, and he realized that he had acted before he thought about it -- it couldn’t be any emergency that a former Starfleet officer could address, on Risa. It was probably a personal crisis. And that was beyond him to address.

But she’d stopped and now looked at him with anticipation, questioning, uncertainty, and there was no use in being rude. 

“I’m sorry, but you appear to be in distress,” he said.

A faint smile, at that. “That’s likely because most people don’t walk around in wedding dresses while crying, I suppose.” She raised a foot, balancing on the other to brush off the bottom and put it back down with a wince. The sand was hot to his feet as well. 

“You could sit down if your feet hurt,” he said, gesturing at the neighboring empty lounge chair. All the chairs were spaced apart, but in pairs, as if everyone came to Risa coupled up. He had considered moving the second chair away but people seemed to be leaving him alone today.

To his surprise she came and did so, swinging her legs up -- she settled cross-legged and facing him. So he sat down as well, but put his feet on the shoes he’d left there to keep his feet off the sun-baked sand. 

“I’m Deanna Troi,” she said. “And I ran away from my own wedding. But he did it first.”

He chuckled in surprise. “Jean-Luc Picard,” he returned. “I’ve run away from relationships that might become weddings. At the moment I’m running away from a decision, or rather, I suppose you might say I’m trying to find my way to making one. The court-martial was two weeks ago. I was acquitted, not guilty, but I haven’t quite managed to come to the same conclusion.”

“It’s a constant in life,” she said, sounding almost detached, “that we are all very good at forgiving others for crimes they commit, but we are terrible at forgiving ourselves.”

“What crime did you commit? If he’s the one who left,” he said, thinking that she was far too young to have learned such things.

“I chose a young officer with a four-pip dream, and he was offered a promotion, which he took instead of coming here.”

He heard the tears in her voice, and thought it was probably why she wasn’t elaborating. She’d be sobbing if she tried. “So he sent a message and asked to postpone it?”

She glared at the sand miserably and shook her head. Her lip had a curl in it, and now both lips started to tremble. 

“Well, I’d say you’re better without someone who can’t figure out how to postpone something so important, instead of canceling it. Perhaps it wasn’t as important to him as it should have been. So I think you might have avoided a catastrophe in the making.”

She laughed, a sort of strangled, mostly-amused sound. And laughed again, as she thought about it. “You’re probably right.”

“Well, of course. I think he’s probably suffering from being too young to know better. He’ll learn the hard way how foolish he’s being.”

She wasn’t as teary-eyed, now. In fact, she was started to look at him again. She was, in a word, dangerous. Just the kind of woman who could distract him from his self-imposed exile. Intelligent, confident, and he thought that if not for the situation she was in, she would be interesting on other levels as well. 

She gazed at him with ever-increasing sobriety, and it occurred to him that he was talking to a Betazoid, and thinking about how attractive she was, and she wasn’t in any frame of mind to even consider thinking about him in kind. So he thought instead about her situation again, and about his own state of being. 

“I think we could help each other,” he said. “I have this problem to think about, and vacation to engage myself in, but I’ve managed to be on Risa and people continually approach me despite the fact that I have not at any point had a horg’han. I have books to read and intended to finish all of them prior to leaving. You have, apparently, some grieving and a desire to isolate yourself -- I suspect that once you remove the wedding wear, you will end up in the same situation, being approached repeatedly by well-meaning friendly people.”

“You want me to occupy the second chair,” she said.

“Well, you aren’t an unpleasant person. I can tell you’re quite intelligent. We might actually engage in conversation once in a while, if you’re open to that and I’ve come to a decent stopping point in my book.”

This time the laughter was of the genuinely-amused variety. She shifted around, to lay on her back against the lounge chair, and began to pull pins out of her hair, removing the trailing cascade of ribbons, fabric and chains. She had an amazing head of hair -- it had to be long enough to reach her hips. The more pins she removed, the more wavy locks cascaded down. 

“I’ll have to cut it soon,” she commented, and he wondered if she were reading his thoughts. “And, no, I’m not a telepath.”

“Really.”

“I’m an empath. You feel, and I can guess from the context what you’re thinking. Sometimes I guess wrong, you can always tell me if I am. I can pretend I’m just another human, if you like. I do that when I’m in class.”

“What class?” He followed her example, lying back and taking out one of his books. 

“I am on the verge of completing a doctorate in psychology at the University of Betazed, and the classes I’m taking are at the Starfleet Academy annex in Janara.”

“I’d heard they were starting to put counselors on starships,” he said. “So you’ll be pioneering in the field of starship officer psychology, then. I daresay you’ll find a lot of work to do.”

She started to remove the dress, he noticed out of the corner of his eye -- it startled him. “Have you ever spoken to a therapist?”

“Yes, but not as a patient. I’ve been told that I should. Perhaps when I get back to Earth, at some point.”

He fully expected her to continue talking about that, but she shimmied out of the shining silver skirt that had been the bottom of three layers of gauzy white material and let it fall on the sand next to her chair, leaving her in a very scant bright green thong, a matching lacy bra, and an emerald gleaming from a piercing in her navel. She was indeed a shapely young woman, with fair skin and more hair than he’d ever seen. Glancing at him, she lay back and closed her eyes.

“You don’t think you need therapy. That would guarantee that it wouldn’t work.”

He tried to focus on the page in front of him, to stop reacting to her near-nudity, and her assertion shocked him.

“I’ve been seeing clients for five years as an intern,” she continued. “People come to treatment for many reasons having nothing to do with getting better, solving the problem, or developing insight into themselves. Sometimes their superior officers order them to. Sometimes spouses drag them in. Sometimes they have the wrong goal -- I had a man ask me to help him convince the woman he loved to marry him, and she wasn’t in love with him, in fact she continually treated him horribly, verbally abused him at every opportunity. People don’t understand therapy until they are in it.”

“So like so many things, it has to be voluntary,” he said. The page he had turned to, he noticed, was incorrect -- he flipped back a dozen pages looking for his bookmark.

“What are you reading?”

“I was given a list of one hundred books everyone should read, in a class at the Academy. I never read all the books, barely got through two of them by the time I reached lieutenant, and so I started to read again last year when I had more time to do such things. This is Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.”

“Who?”

He smiled at it. “An eighteenth century novelist whose novels were actually criticisms of the British culture at the time. This was Earth well before computers and starships -- no one thought about space at that time, and the life span was very short, and customs surrounding marriage were very different. History and archeology are fascinating to me.”

“You read books more to learn about history, than for entertainment,” she observed.

“Both, actually, since I enjoy history. While the language is somewhat archaic, the story is somewhat engaging, once I understand the context of the culture of the time.” He had read a summary of the plot before starting, as he usually did with such books -- it helped to understand the minutiae of the interactions of the characters and why they acted as they did. In the course of this particular Austen novel, a young woman fell in love, was rejected, and then later came to realize that her swain was lacking in character and likely a bad choice. She later married a more suitable, older man she came to love, and found her happy ending.

“I’ve been reading nothing but psychology texts, as of late,” she said with a sigh. “I should pick up some fiction -- I have three weeks on Risa to fill with leisurely activities, since I’m not spending time with a husband.”

He glanced down at his bag and plucked another book out. “Any interest in T’Pella’s Dreams of the Desert?”

“Vulcan poetry? I’ll give it a try.”

He handed it across, and they spent several hours until sunset reading in silence. As the twilight turned to dark, he shut the book on his bookmark and tucked it in the bag. “I’m going to the Risan restaurant at the main resort, if you want to join me.”

“That sounds nice.” She handed him the book she’d borrowed as she rose, and collected all the pieces of her former wedding gown in a wad. “I have to wonder about the translation -- some of the poetry doesn’t sound Vulcan.”

“For all their devotion to rational logic and eschewing emotion, Vulcans are a passionate people. I was given that book by a Vulcan officer who corrected my assumption that they are emotionless. What they manage to do is control and direct their feelings. Something I could have learned to do sooner -- I was possibly less intelligent than many, until experience taught me I should be otherwise.”

They walked down the sand toward the lights of the resort, as were others who’d been out on the beach. “I should go up to my room and change.” She turned to him as they reached the open beach bar and its adjoining patios. “Shall we meet at the entrance of the restaurant in twenty minutes?”

“Yes -- I’m going up as well,” he said, angling for the path that would lead them through the trees to the resort buildings. She followed all the way into the main building, into an elevator. And got out on the sixth floor, leaving him alone to ride to the seventh. 

When he reached the restaurant sans books and wearing a nondescript comfortable beige shirt and some dark blue pants, he felt a little sheepish and tried to set it aside. He’d started to feel self conscious about this. What knocked him out of that was arriving at the entrance to the restaurant and seeing her waiting, standing to one side as people were entering the restaurant two by two -- she wore a brilliant blue and silver dress and heels, and had drawn her hair up into a band angled toward the left, letting her long hair fall in rippling, gleaming waves down her shoulder. He had been correct; it was hip-length.

He realized, as he approached, trying to look relaxed instead of frozen in anxiety, that he had stopped breathing, and started again. She had a tolerant expression and a wry quirk to her mouth. “All I have are outfits that were intended for a particular purpose, you know,” she said.

“Yes, I know. And it’s quite effective. Literally took my breath away, in fact,” he said laconically.

At once, she turned -- they walked together into the restaurant and the hostess greeted them with a brilliant smile, and seated them at a tiny table on a balcony overlooking the ocean. The moon was starting to rise already, and candles flickered in the gentle breeze.

Once the waiter had come and gone, she faced him across the table as if about to tell him something very serious. He tensed at once. But she smiled and rolled her eyes. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, her gaze falling to a small bunch of flowers in a vase between them. “You have been very kind to me. You were the only person today who didn’t either ignore me or demand details, and I appreciate that you were willing to help me over the worst part of it all. I fought with my mother earlier, when she was being particularly insensitive and hard-headed about it -- that’s why I was stomping down the beach away from it all. I learned from the manager of the resort just now that she sent all my guests home and checked out herself -- I suppose I’m fortunate that I made the reservations for the honeymoon suite myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have a room at all.”

“Fortunate, and unfortunate?”

Her eyes shimmered again, and he sighed. Anguish had never been so beautiful. He wanted to bundle up all his mixed feelings and tuck them away, then, as her expression once again changed in reaction to him. 

“No, don’t be embarrassed,” she said with a brittle smile. “It actually helps, that you are distracting me from my own misery. I think I would have cried all afternoon without it.”

“I can feel awkward all night, if you like,” he said with a lopsided grin. They were chuckling together when the drinks came.

“Are you always so kind to strangers? Or just the pretty ones?”

“Kind, no. I’ve never been in a situation like this before, which says a lot. I’ve been in many unique situations. Starfleet is like that.” He’d ordered beer, rather than hard liquor, and found that the ale was quite good. 

“Safe to say I’ve never been in this kind of situation either,” she remarked, looking at her tall, fruit-filled glass but not touching it yet. “I thought I had been heartbroken before. I have been corrected.”

“You are, however, handling it with considerably more grace and composure than I did. I suppose your mother is less composed?”

Her expression was a strange mix of anger and despair. “Mother took it personally as if I had done something to ruin her party. She loves throwing parties, and the wedding of her daughter was so important to her that she made it huge and extravagant, the wedding she didn’t have, and she was so invested in it, and when I announced that he would not be coming she was more disappointed that I didn’t want to actually have the party after all than she was in my being jilted. In a few days, she’ll be nothing but sympathy, when she realizes she’s hurt me. Apologies will be made. It’ll all be fine with us. Except if I ever bother to have a wedding, I’ll just do it myself, and invite her when I’m done planning it.”

“So you’re also smarter than I was, learning from your mistakes,” he said, and her smile returned as he’d hoped.

Dinner arrived, and conversation shifted to food -- it was a safe topic, and she had almost as much experience with different ethnic cuisines as he did, with his decades in space, which impressed him. 

“My mother is a traveler,” she explained as she ate a leaf-wrapped item with her fork, sawing it into bites. “She took me with her quite a lot. I had a private tutor for most of my childhood until I was old enough to ask to go to school.”

“You haven’t mentioned other family.”

“My father died when I was seven, in the line of duty,” she said. “He was human. That’s why I’m an empath. It’s also why Mother didn’t want me to marry an officer, and why she is opposed to my attending the Academy.”

He nodded. “I haven’t spoken to my brother in years. He’s very much like our father, wanting to be earthbound and traditional to the end. Very disapproving of my decision to leave and not be part of the family business. Sometimes I think I was only more determined to go as a reaction to their anger and disapproval.”

“I try not to make decisions when I’m upset for that reason. Like now -- I’m trying very hard to just exist in the present moment, and not imagine the future at all, because I have to get through this before I can begin to make rational choices again. Part of the reason I stayed on Risa.” Sadness started to creep up in her eyes again. “I know that tonight I will be alone and crying, and it’s where I need to be, because anything else would be a mistake.”

“And tomorrow?”

She took another bite and thought about that, chewing slowly. “I don’t know. I’m starting to feel as you did, awkward and embarrassed -- you are clearly in your own transitional space, working through your own challenges, and it’s obviously not your intent to take full advantage of the traditional Risan holiday experience. You have your own process and it’s very intentionally designed to be solitary. I have no intention of being on a real Risan holiday, either, because I am never going to be interested in mindless sexual experiences for their own sake. I’ve had that before, and it’s not enough for me. As an empath it just doesn’t feel right, if the other person isn’t in the same emotional state -- that’s hard to find.”

He almost asked, but that was too uncomfortable. On a more intellectual level, the one that made cultural exploration, diplomacy, so fascinating to him, he was interested in why it was different for an empath. But it was a personal, intimate thing and her sharing this with him was starting to make him uncomfortable for other reasons.

She smiled and let her eyes stray to the bunch of flowers again. “I’m embarrassing you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m accustomed to discussing all kinds of things in a detached way, I’m afraid, one of the hazards of being a psychologist.”

“We could continue as we have been,” he said, before tipping the remainder of the pint into his mouth.

Her eyes opened wide again. “I know that I’m imposing -- you’ve been far too generous with your time as it is.”

“Have I felt at all bothered by your company? I’ll make you a deal -- if I start to feel annoyed, you can walk off. Go hang-gliding or sailing, or something, instead of talking about poetry.”

She smiled -- that was her, finally, he thought. Without the angst or the uncertainty that she might be imposing. “All right. It’s a deal.”


	2. Deanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
> 
> Ann Landers
> 
>  

The graduating class of 2359 received thunderous applause when the commandant gave the traditional introduction of the Academy graduates -- the collected family and friends and cadets filled the stadium, and all the good will and excitement nearly overwhelmed her. Deanna walked in the line of freshly-minted ensigns off the stage, and as the line reached the first few rows of stadium seats her classmates broke ranks and joined their loved ones, hugging and exclaiming loudly about how happy they were it was over, where were they going to dinner, where they would be going for leave -- all the usual graduation festivities would be going on all over San Francisco. 

She tried to sidle away toward an exit but Grace, her roommate, caught her arm. “Coming to The Dock with us?” She gave Deanna a sympathetic smile. The Dock was a casual restaurant where most of the cadets spent off time, flirting and studying and chatting. There would be free beer for the graduates, which was of course a major incentive for everyone to celebrate there.

“You go with your parents, it’s all right. I’m going to go back to the apartment and start packing.”

“Heading for Betazed?” Grace hoped she’d changed her mind, but Deanna shook her head. Mother was upset, again, that she had stayed in class and finished the Academy, because it meant she would be an officer. She'd refused to come to graduation. Going home wouldn’t make either one of them happy. The false cheer in her congratulatory message that had come through that morning told Deanna that much.

“I’m going to take the three weeks I’m given, somewhere nice. Paris, maybe. You have a great time -- I’ll be in touch soon.” She leaned and hugged Grace fondly. Her roommate would be an engineer, someday. Likely they would gradually stop communicating, without the glue of being cadets together, as they had little in common and Starfleet had a way of eating up all your time and energy.

"Okay. Take care," Grace said, her smile twisted to sadness, but she moved away toward her parents waiting in the milling crowd not far away.

Deanna wanted to escape -- she tried not to look like it, though, so ended up zigzagging toward the nearest exit. She had been trying to avoid tears for the past hour and a half. The great mass of undifferentiated emotion -- though mostly positive -- of the hundreds of people present had made it impossible to sense anyone she might recognize from afar. Her head was starting to ache.

The nearest door let her out onto the Academy grounds, on the west side of the building. Rolling lawns for acres, with a classroom building here and there. The nearest was the cultural diversity building -- where budding officers took coursework in anthropology, the species of the Federation, and known but not allied species. She started walking, then jogging. As she came around a planter full of brilliant blossoms that Boothby had planted just last week, she saw an officer in the new uniform, a red one, striding away from her toward the languages building. The sight of the bald head made her heart leap, brought all her attention and frayed nerves to bear, and she realized that it was him. She hadn't seen Jean-Luc since Risa two and a half years before. Hadn't sensed him since either, but now that she could -- her friend was here, and her heart leaped.

She ran forward, to catch up with him. He heard her coming as she drew near, and glanced back casually, but froze as he recognized her. She came to a stop with a bounce and before she could see his expression or process his reaction to her appearance, she threw her arms around his neck.

There was an awkward moment of stiffness, of shock, and then he reciprocated. It was the first time she'd ever hugged him. They had said farewell on Risa, shaking hands -- he'd been so helpful to her, and she'd wanted to hug him, but he had struggled with saying good-bye and she could tell he had resisted touching her. Now, to her surprise, he held her tightly, his face in her hair; she felt his sigh along her ear, and as her joy at finding him ebbed, she realized his feelings and went through another moment of shock.

After Risa she had sent a message thanking him, believing that would be the end of it -- she hadn't expect him to respond, despite the affection that had developed between them. She was pleased when he replied, and then a long correspondence ensued, punctuated by subspace discussions here and there, about life and the pursuit of artifacts, classes at the Academy, and very occasionally about past experiences. He rarely gave up tidbits about his past, but sometimes when he was in a certain mood, he could be forthcoming. She had wondered, from time to time, why he would respond to her messages, call and talk to her, and then she had stopped questioning it -- she had enjoyed their conversations and didn't care to analyze, it caused anxiety. There was already enough stress just being at the Academy.

Now, the sheer intensity of the emotions he had was enough to make her cry. He felt overwhelming love and pain, simultaneously. Such anguish confused her completely. They had spoken only ten days before, and nothing in the conversation had hinted at anything that would generate these feelings. Of course, he hadn't necessarily told her everything that was going on his life, and she started to feel a little foolish about assuming she would have known about the source of his pain.

She pressed her lips together, refusing to ask questions. This could be about something else -- an old friend's death, something related to his family. He might even have had Someone. That thought had to be banished quickly, before she reacted to it.

When they stood apart again, she smiled at him. "You didn't say you were coming for graduation," she chided lightly. "But I'm so happy to see you that I'll forgive you."

He smiled, but it was a pale imitation of smiles she had seen while they wandered about on Risa. "I wasn't sure I would make it. I'm glad I did." He glanced beyond her, behind her, and then his eyes flicked back to hers. "I thought you would want to go celebrate with friends, or your mother."

"Mother didn't come," she said, swiping the back of her hand across her eye to banish a tear, "and I didn't have very many friends, here. And the ceremony was so overwhelming for me that I really wanted to find some solitude."

He scowled at that. "Your mother didn't... why?"

"She didn't support my decision to come to the Academy. She didn't fund my stay here. Why would she be here?" It was difficult to not sound bitter about it, impossible not to sound hurt.

He kept frowning, but didn't seem to know what to say. He touched her arm, hesitantly, fingers brushing the sleeve of her dress uniform. "I'm sorry," he said at last, quietly, in a tone that suggested he felt that was inadequate.

"Has something happened?" she asked finally.

"No," he said at once. "Yes."

The sadness from him suffused her, until her eyes prickled. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He blinked, slowly, and stood like a rock feeling such anguish that she could not keep herself from grabbing his hand. Regret filled him. She could only think to distract them, let him have space.

"We should get dinner. There's so much to celebrate -- it feels as though I haven't seen you in decades. I think the only thing that got me through the Academy was our conversations." She tugged at his hand, drew him along the walk with her, hoping motion would help. She'd gotten through so much anxiety by running it off.

She asked him about the usual things -- they were reading the same books, and he'd told her all about the project he'd been working on, even including the people he worked with and the little dramas that came with it. His responses were minimal but resorting to their normal interactions appeared to be helping him even out and settle his feelings, though he continued to feel anguish.

They had talked about meeting somewhere, here and there -- but he had never firmed up the plan or something had always come up. It had been a relief, in a way, since the thought of him noticing a difference in her manner toward him filled her with anxiety. But it was obvious that it was the other way around. He wasn't the same as he'd been over subspace.

At the edge of Academy grounds, she turned around and looked up the hill, and realized she wouldn't have to come back. Her eyes burned -- between the fear of not knowing what to do with him and her fear about the future, about having second thoughts about Starfleet, she was in a horrible place.

"Deanna," he said, drawing her attention. She shook herself out of her paralysis.

"Sorry. I was just thinking. Let's go down to Market Street and pick a restaurant. There's a good Thai place I know."

"I'm sorry," he said, turning his hand to hold hers. He'd allowed her to cling, without reciprocating. "I'm -- "

She waited, semi-hopefully.

"I want you to be happy," he said with a twisting sort of misery that she felt in her gut, along with the residue of the anxiety of graduation and the lack of food -- she hadn't bothered to eat lunch. "I shouldn't have come."

She stared at him for a moment, while the bottom fell out of her stomach. "Then I suppose I am alone," she murmured, turning on a heel and marching away.

By the next block, she could hardly see for the tears. Her pulse felt like it was pounding behind her eyes. She stopped in front of her apartment building almost out of sense memory, ingrained during the daily walk to and from campus -- the green and brown building was a blur. She missed the panel and her palm met cold stone. Leaning there gripping the corner of the entry, she tried to recover her composure before the walk up to the apartment she'd shared with Grace.

"Deanna."

She turned around, to find that Jean-Luc had followed her. But she couldn't sense anything; her head ached, her stomach felt like an empty pit of pain, and she had to lean back against the building. He looked worried, and pained.

"I don't think I've ever belonged anywhere," she babbled, letting her fears for the future come to the fore. "I have to live somewhere. I suppose I could try Vulcan. It might be easier."

His head tilted slightly, and an eyebrow went up. "You appear to have left out some things, when we've spoken."

"Pot, kettle." She pushed away from the building and pressed her palm against the sensor, opening the door. "Come on."

The lift was a snug fit for the two of them. On the third floor, she led the way to her door, and of course Grace and her family weren't there yet. Still celebrating somewhere. "I have to be out of here in a couple hours," she said, going to one of the two bedrooms. "They aren't kind, I can't afford to pay extra for staying over another day. The rates skyrocket once you're no longer a student."

"This is tiny," he said. "Not what I expected." She looked at him as the bedroom door opened. A starship captain, in the tiny apartment with bare beige walls. It was not a setting he belonged in, this cheap, bare little box. They had a replicator and a bathroom with a sonic shower.

"I would offer you something but we're charged when we go over the replicator credit limit, and Grace put us over last night replicating champagne."

"Have you been given your new assignment?"

"I might have a message. I haven't listened to most of my messages in a couple of days." She stepped into her room. The bed, more like a cot, wasn't made. The open duffel bag on the messy covers was half full. She got the last armload of items out of the closet and started rolling them and stuffing them inside.

"You aren't excited," he commented from the door.

"I'm happy to be done, finally," she said. "I want...."

She had wanted to take the three weeks she would have off, following graduation, to go to see him. She had wanted to see if he felt anything that might be a basis for more than a friendship -- she felt so close to him after all the months of laying in bed listening to his voice while they discussed all manner of things. That he was so conflicted and anguished now that they were face to face had shaken her.

The headache pulsed behind her eyes like hammers. She sat heavily on the end of the bed and pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

"How can I help?"

"I don't know. It hurts.... I might have analgesic in the drawer in the bathroom."

She heard his footsteps retreat, and he returned moments later. "This it?"

She dropped her hands and took the hypo. Not looking at him meant staring at the floor while she pressed it against her neck, beneath her right ear. It was the last dose, she noticed before tossing the hypo into the blankets.

"You always sounded happy," he said. To her surprise, he sat down next to her.

"I was, when I was talking to you." The headache was clearing, but that only left her with the feeling of having a lava pit somewhere behind her naval. She moaned. His hand came down on her shoulder.

"I watched you graduate, and I was feeling so proud of you. I wish you had told me -- "

Deanna ripped at the collar of her jacket, taking out her ire on it. The single pip flew off and bounced away across the faux wood flooring. She fumbled at the front of the jacket but the ridiculous hidden fasteners were eluding her clumsy fingers.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I should have -- "

“You’re missing the opening of the tomb, aren’t you?” He had been on a lengthy expedition to dig up the ruins on Malthusia, and the massive building they were unearthing for a month prior to graduation was to be opened after the last mounds of dirt were carefully removed. He’d talked excitedly about that during their last conversation.

“Well, yes, I am. I suspect Louis will send me pictures.”

“You’ve worked for two years in that dig,” she exclaimed. “The tomb was the most well preserved, you said -- probably the most important find yet.”

"Yes. It was more important to be here." He went quiet, and put his hand on her back again, sliding it across to her other shoulder. "I was losing interest in the dig anyway."

"Why?" She started again on the jacket. It was slow going, but she finally got it off -- he took it from her. The sweaty turtleneck was close behind, and then she stood and yanked at the slacks and shoved off the boots in the same motion, leaving it all in a pile. She didn't care if he watched; she'd never been body shy, even after she knew how anxious some humans could be about nudity. Taking the last dress from the closet, her favorite pale blue, she pulled it on over her head and turned as she tugged it into place.

She was finding her equilibrium, feeling somewhat better than before though still hollow with hunger, and started to sense his emotions again. There were still eddies of guilt, some sort of angst, but also hope and some regret, and then there was the affection and attraction she expected. And love -- that was the most confusing piece. How he could feel so terrible, walk away like that -- she was starting to see that the love really couldn't be about someone else. He watched her with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Why are you feeling this way?" Her determination to not intrude collapsed in the face of concern for him.

"I should have -- stopped."

"Stopped what?" She returned to the bed to put on the heels she'd left out. "You should stop feeling like I want to cry."

He snorted at it. "I should have stopped returning your calls. I should have stopped, or told you how I felt. I should have stopped being my usual cowardly self."

Deanna sat up from putting on the left shoe to fling her hair back and stare at him, across a mere foot of air space. "Whatever else I may have forgotten about my classes, I do remember what they said about Captain Picard. Nothing in there about being a coward."

"I'm a coward when it comes to this sort of thing. You don't know how many times I was on the verge of simply saying -- I just never felt right about it. I got here, and when I saw you down there it felt impossible. I feel like a fool, pretending that you might feel something for me, just because I was there when you were vulnerable."

A wave of despair went through her, and then she channeled the anger that had gotten her through classes and everything else, over the past year. She clung to that anger in absence of real hope. She'd heard clients do this -- intelligent people wrestling with strong feelings and strong ethics could come to such confusing conclusions. And she'd heard this theme from him, over the past two years, talking to him.

He went still as he noticed her glaring. She crossed her arms tightly. "Just because you were there on Risa. Was it someone else I've been talking to, that just happened to sound like you, for the past few years? Why did I keep talking to you so much if I didn't feel something for you?"

"I thought about that as well. I half convinced myself of it. But when I got here...." Jean-Luc's mood had started to shift already, as they had started to talk, and that pushed him into a frustrated sort of resignation. 

"If I were talking to a client about this I'd tell him to stop pretending to be responsible for her welfare. She's making choices for herself, for better or for worse. Sometimes worse. It's still her choice."

"You told me you weren't going to therapy me," he exclaimed, indignant.

Deanna leaned back a little, giving him a disdainful stare. " _Therapy_  you?"

"Well, you said -- you know what you said. I've made mistakes before, in relationships. I know how badly you were hurt -- I don't want to see you hurt again."

"Unless you're actually planning to hurt me, I'm not clear on what I should worry about."

"I've been in love before. I left someone waiting for me, instead of being brave enough to go tell her to her face that I chose career over her. I fell in love with my best friend's wife. I was there when he died in the line of duty, on my watch, and I had to tell her -- I had to stand with her and their son at the funeral."

She heaved a great sigh. "And this is relevant to me in what way?"

He threw his arms out dramatically. "Well, if your best friend was interested in a rotten old man -- "

"Oh, STOP being such an overdramatic trauma victim," she exclaimed. "You're anxious because you're afraid you'll be traumatized again. If I didn't run away from you when it became clear you were suffering all this angst because you wanted to be a martyr, rescue me from the hell of being in love with you, why keep this up? You don't have to talk yourself out of loving me. As if that would even work. If my best friend was interested in you, I'd tell her to go to hell."

He started to laugh -- incredulous, and a little angry. "You said you don't diagnose friends!"

"Since I'm not your therapist I can't do anything about it, but if you're going to spit symptoms like a poster boy for post traumatic stress, why am I not going to say anything?"

Jean-Luc stared at the floor again, thinking about it. "Are you telling me that you love me?"

Deanna stood up and leaned against the wall, rubbing her eyes wearily. "No, Jean-Luc, I don't love you at all. Your attempts to reject me based on some imaginary obligation to protect me wounded me deeply for no reason whatsoever. I asked you to come in here so I could tell you to leave me alone, instead of just going the other direction when I saw you."

He radiated misery for a few moments, and then looked up at her as the mood shifted again. "I deserved that."

"Yes, you did. So where are we getting dinner? I swear I'm going to start eating furniture soon."

 

\------------------------------

 

They took her bag to leave it in his hotel room. The intent had been to get her a room, but there were no other rooms available yet, so he offered her the second bedroom -- the only room he'd found on short notice was a suite, as due to the graduation all the local hotels were booked solid. He dropped her duffel in the living room floor, and pulled out a chair for her at the table. Outside the paned windows the sun was setting over the bay.

"If you don't want to wait for dinner, perhaps room service? The restaurant is very good."

She sat, and he plucked the padd from the middle of the table and presented it with a flourish. "Thank you."

Jean-Luc sat across the table from her and let her choose first, and when she passed it back he put in his order as well before setting it aside. "They're fast enough. It should be here shortly."

"You said you have a meeting in the morning," she said.

"I do indeed. I anticipate they may offer me a space station. Just what a returning captain in disgrace might be given."

"But you aren't just any captain," Deanna exclaimed.

Jean-Luc slumped in the chair. He'd changed into a gray sweater and black slacks. "No, I'm a captain who lost his ship, and left Starfleet for almost three years. I deserve to be chastened."

"For a variety of reasons?"

He stared at her with a smirk. "Now, how long am I going to do penance for my sins?"

"Not too long. I prefer to spend my time with someone enjoying the experience mutually. If you enjoy my sarcasm it might last longer."

He said nothing, but it was clear to her he had a lot on his mind. There was, she thought, still some hesitance about him, as if he thought she would come to her senses any time now.

The polite, quiet chime announced the arrival of wait staff, with food. The young man laid it all out on the table -- drinks, plates of food, a couple of pieces of pie, utensils. He departed with the empty cart and left them to eat. Jean-Luc started to do just that. While he loaded his fork with bits of vegetable, she began with her soup and proceeded to inhale her meal.

"You were that hungry," he commented after she ate the last of her pasta and shoved the plate and bowl aside, reaching for the pie.

"I may need more pie," she said.

"Did you eat at all, while you were at the Academy? You seem... thinner."

She tucked another bite of rhubarb in her mouth. It wasn't her favorite, but it was quite good. "Grace called it the stress diet. We didn't have a lot of funding for extra replicator credits, either. At one point I had to replicate a uniform, after ruining mine in a weapons drill. I survived on air and water for a week."

He scowled, putting down his fork. "You should have said something."

"Call it a learning experience."

"The Academy is supposed to be challenging, not deprivation. Why didn't you tell me?"

She shrugged and finished her pie, dropping the fork on the scant crumbs. "I came here to get the rest of the coursework done, I succeeded. I was friendly to everyone for a while, until I figured out that being friendly to humans my age is generally an invitation to a dozen lousy pickup lines per minute. Then I started to cultivate the reputation of 'standoffish and pleasant' and chose only people who were less interested in sex to warm up to -- that helped somewhat. I helped staff the desk in the languages building and worked at the counseling clinic part time, and went running in the park every morning by myself. As usual, I don't get along well with people my age."

"Deanna, you never even hinted that you were having so much difficulty," he scolded. 

"What would you have done? Come to scowl at the offenders? Just because I'm ten pounds underweight and tired as hell, and I've learned to hate twenty-year-old men," she exclaimed.

He sighed at that. "You should have told me. If I'm really your friend...."

"I wanted my time with you to be more positive than that. I had a therapist to talk to."

"You -- " He leaned back, chin in hand. "I suppose I'm no better."

"I think we are fairly equally matched in obsessing and avoiding, actually."

They stared at each other, each pondering the situation -- or at least she was. As frustrating as he was being, she appreciated more and more that he consistently acted out of a desire to help her. His reasons were becoming clearer.

"After my meeting tomorrow, we'll have a better idea of what the next few weeks will look like," he said. "If I can take a little more time, perhaps I can spend a week with you."

"If you can't I'll go with you, until I have to report to my first assignment." Possibly longer, if things went well. At this point she was ambivalent about Starfleet. No need to stress him on that point, however.

It took him aback. He stared again, somewhat confused. Perhaps he was starting to hear her again, through his own angst.

"I'm glad you are here, Jean-Luc," she added, smiling.

He smiled at that. "I could ask for a counselor for my space station. A Betazoid counselor, specifically."

She grinned at it and looked down at the pattern on the carpet. Suddenly, she lost her nerve. They were together, and he was focusing now on what she had wanted, being more open with each other, and it was encouraging but also anxiety-provoking. Exciting.

"I have something to show you," he said, rising. They moved to the ornate burgundy sofa and he opened a hard-sided case, and one by one set ceramic objects on the coffee table. He showed her a series of statuettes that increased in size up to a particularly ugly fellow with an ornate molded headdress and long weapon.

"He's very well endowed," she commented, pointing.

"It's supposed to be a spear. This is a temple warrior. There are thousands of them planted around the temple -- part of the reason it took years to unearth it."

"It doesn't look like a spear. Of course, I might have a different opinion if I hadn't been celibate for so long."

He gave her one of his patented looks -- this one was an understated incredulous suggestion that he was faced with such ludicrousness that it took immense patience on his part to just sit there.

"Sorry."

His expression softened, to fondness. Something he hadn't done on Risa -- but there was of course a big difference, between now and then. She sensed he was still hesitant, but he wasn't shut down, backing away or ruminating endlessly so she counted it a success. So she listened while he explained how all the little penis warriors had been placed around the temple on Malthusia, facing the temple and in concentric rings, and theories as to why. He moved on to the fantastic urn that took up most of the space in the box, raising it from the packing material. It was painted in impressive swirls of red and blue.

"They let you keep these?" she asked, after he explained what they thought the urn was for. "Aren't they supposed to be in a museum, or kept on the site?"

"I brought these back to give to archeologists here on Earth. I'm delivering them tomorrow -- along with a lot of data."

"So you're meeting with the admirals and then doing that. I suppose that means I get to sleep in."

He started to repack things, with the utmost care. "You haven't checked messages."

She sighed and found herself hunching her shoulders inward as if cringing away from that task. "You're right. I should. Yet I don't feel that is in my best interests at this time."

"What are you avoiding?"

"One of them is from Will Riker." She was probably making that face that Grace had seen her make after she tasted dried kelp the first time.

An echo of the dread she felt came from Jean-Luc. He pulled his eyes back to his task, wrapping a ceramic penis warrior to lay it to rest in the crate.

"I've tried to keep things friendly with him despite everything, and I've carefully avoided any hint of appearing to be open to going back to the way it was."

"You should delete it without responding, if you don't intend to go back to him," Jean-Luc said. Some of the angst had returned in force.

She thought about that. "You've told me that before. Why wouldn't I want to try to be friends?"

"I consider some of the women I've... spent time with to be my friends. Some are not. The difference lies in the attitude -- some people view ongoing communication as an open door, to return to what was between you. That you have to 'try' to keep it on the level of a friendship suggests that he is pushing you for more."

"He sends me chatty messages every couple of months or so. Nothing like he was before. But you think he has other ideas?"

Jean-Luc latched the lid on the crate with more care and focus than the task required. "You haven't told me much about him, so I wouldn't even begin to guess."

"You may be right. Computer, this is Ensign Deanna Troi, do I have any messages?"

It took a moment for the system to make the right connections, but it listed five messages -- one from Starfleet Command and two from Will, one from her mother, another from Grace. She listened to the one from her former roommate first -- another farewell, letting her know she had checked out of the apartment as well and not to believe the management if they tried to charge them extra fees. Mother's was another plaintive request for her to just come home already. When Will's first message started she flinched at the sound of his voice.

"Deanna, I need to talk to you, can you contact me as soon as possible? I have concerns about that last message you sent. I'm worried about you."

"He sounds angry," Jean-Luc said. "Not worried."

"He probably is. I told him I didn't agree with him that we should get together for leave, after graduation. That I had other plans and wouldn't be available. I was exhausted after a final at the time, so probably sounded ill."

Jean-Luc settled back on the couch, turning toward her, a knee resting on the cushion in front of him. "You were under a lot of stress for the past two months. You sounded like that a lot."

"Computer, next message."

"Deanna," Will exclaimed, clearly upset. "I was at the graduation ceremony. By the time I got down to where I'd seen you, you were gone -- where the hell are you? I looked up your address and found the place but apparently you moved out right after you graduated. Contact me, please."

"Computer, delete the messages from Lieutenant-Commander Will Riker," she said. Smiling, she turned to Jean-Luc. "I don't suppose you have a chess board?"

"We can find one if you want. Or we could take a walk?" He gestured at the windows, where moonlight gently illuminated the panes.

"I'm really, really tired," she said, realizing just how true that was at the thought of walking anywhere. She pushed the shoes off her feet as she drew her legs up beneath her and draped herself against the back of the couch. "Talk to me."

That led to a little embarrassment on his part. "It's funny, how we could spend hours talking, and I can't think of a thing to say."

"You could tell me how you liked the book." The latest one was a novel written just last year, a mystery. She hadn't read it yet thanks to finals.

"Well, I could, if I had read it," he said with a sheepish grin. "I tried to on the way here. I was very distracted."

"By imagining how wonderful it would be to see me again?"

He bowed his head, and she was surprised that her tease was actually true -- he was embarrassed again, and definitely not looking at her directly as a result. 

"Talk to me?"

He didn't want to talk, but he was clearly having difficulty motivating himself to do what he wanted. So she got up and moved closer to him, slowly, giving him time to object or move away. He watched her settle next to him, within easy reach of the arm he had draped along the back of the couch. She leaned against him, placing her head on his shoulder and sliding an arm behind him between a cushion and his back. Her eyes closed without conscious decision on her part. He was warm, and smelled faintly of his favorite tea, and as she settled closer still she felt his arm descend upon her shoulders and back with tentative light pressure.

She woke to realize she'd fallen asleep, some time later. Still leaning against him, and still moonlight came in the window. Deanna sighed, pushed her face closer to brush her lips along his neck, and resettled in his arms with a smile. She was well on her way into slumber when he woke and took in the situation. "You should go to bed, it's late," he murmured.

"Only because I can tell you have a sore neck." She forced herself off the couch and stumbled a little maneuvering around the coffee table. Stood back and watched him rise -- she smiled, hugged herself, and felt cold without his proximity. He came to her, surprising her by running his hands down her arms.

"You should sleep in, take your time in the morning. I have to be out by nine. But I'll be back after lunch."

"All right. Thank you, for taking me in. I wasn't sure where I would end up."

He touched her face, then leaned in to kiss her -- his lips brushed hers and then he pushed forward again and what started as tentative became a longer contact. She wanted to lean into the kiss, but let him control it. He broke away, but kissed her again. It was so different, kissing him. He wasn't fondling her; his hands remained on her shoulders while his tongue moved in as if asking permission. When he finally pulled away he didn't want to, but gave her a nudge toward her bedroom door and moved toward his own.

Deanna went in her room, pulling off clothing as she went, and slid between cold sheets naked. High quality sheets -- much softer than the ones she'd abandoned in her hovel of an apartment. The bed warmed up as she nestled in and curled up -- she smiled at the thought of kissing him, and went back to sleep.

She finally opened her eyes as the sun reached her face. From the light between the closed curtains it was morning. Sitting up in the massive bed, she took stock -- Jean-Luc was already gone from the room, but Command wasn't so far away that she couldn't sense him. Curious, she focused a little more on the remembered sense of Will Riker, and found that he too wasn't so far away. He was also frustrated.

She went into the bathroom attached to her room and returned wearing the soft, thick, white robe that the Hilton had provided -- it was clearly one size fits all which meant it swam on her, almost dragging the floor. She tied the sash and went through to the living room, and ordered breakfast via the padd on the table. All the dinner dishes had been cleared and there were a few other dishes and some cold coffee in a carafe; Jean-Luc had had breakfast before he left. It was, she noted from the padd, almost lunch time, so she supposed that meant she would be having brunch.

"Computer, play the message for me from Starfleet Command." She listened to the computer-generated message informing her that she was on detached duty after her three week leave was up, until she received her orders, which were being determined by the administrative department. It was what she expected. She'd been informed that counselors were still new to Starfleet and there might be a delay while the first round of clinicians were assigned to ships and starbases based on perceived need. The door chimed as the message ended, and breakfast was delivered by a different young man in the Hilton's red and black uniform.

She was finished eating and sipping coffee while looking out the window at the bay when the computer took the initiative to announce an incoming transmission for her -- she had stuffed the comm badge deep in her duffel with the dress uniform she had rolled into a wad, so perhaps her use of the system yesterday had implied to the computer that she wanted to receive communications directly. It occurred to her that it might be Jean-Luc, so she answered it.

"Deanna," came the relieved voice of the former fiance she didn't really want to talk to. "Where are you?"

"Nice to hear from you, too," she exclaimed. "I'm on vacation. I had plans, as I told you, and I also told you I would rather not spend the time with you."

A moment of silence -- she could tell he was shifting back to frustration from relief. "I was hoping to talk to you, about some of the changes I've gone through. I've done a lot of thinking, and I wanted to talk to you about it in person."

"I prefer to rest. I've had a very stressful and exhausting couple of months, with finals and all the projects I had to complete."

"In a few days, then -- I'm here for a couple of weeks, I came to celebrate your graduation with you."

"Well, I'm sorry you chose to do that and didn't listen to me when I told you that I have other plans."

Frustration multiplied. "Who is he?" Will blurted angrily.

"Right," Deanna said, leaning until her forehead touched the cold glass of the window. "How silly of me to forget. I can't possibly have any other reason for not wanting to see you, because no woman in her right mind could refuse you, all on her own, simply because she doesn't want to be with you. Please stop calling me. Computer, terminate connection."

It did so with a chirp. Within minutes he called back. She countered by telling the computer to decline all calls from him, and went to the couch to sit, letting the overly-long sleeves cover her hands. The room was a little chilly but the robe was like a wearable blanket. She wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face in the soft, thick fabric. 

She had been too nice to Will. Jean-Luc was right -- she should have been deleting his messages. She had been trying to project friendship, nothing more, and he had been hearing something else, obviously.

Deanna shifted and rearranged herself in a more normal sitting position after a bit of self-castigation. As she tucked the hem over her bare foot, the door opened. Jean-Luc strode in and as he saw her he smiled happily and changed course for the couch.

"It's good to see you looking more yourself," he exclaimed, holding out a thin parcel. "You must have slept well."

"What's this?" She pulled the lid open, and poked through the packing material to find an isolinear module. "Some light reading?"

"It's not literature." He sat next to her without hesitation, now, and didn't shy away when she scooted closer. "It's a key. If you need something and don't have the funds, this gives you access to my account."

She stared at the chip in the palm of her hand, starting to cry. "You didn't have to do this."

"Apparently I do. You have five dresses and two uniforms, three pairs of shoes -- there's no makeup in that duffel. You had more than that when we met on Risa, and that was supposedly just a vacation."

Deanna threw her arms around his neck, practically crawling into his lap without thinking about it. The chip gripped in her fist tightly, she kissed him -- she lost herself for a minute, as he reciprocated and his arms slid around her. He held her close even after the kiss ended, and she pressed her cheek to his.

"How did the meeting go?" she murmured, settling back to look at his face.

"Well enough. There is a starbase along the Neutral Zone in need of a commanding officer, they want me to be there in four weeks. I told them I wanted a counselor and apparently, there are very few available."

"I haven't been assigned yet, according to that last message. Are you sure you want me to be in your chain of command?"

He gazed at her with unmistakable affection. "You should be aware that I'm not the same, on duty. I don't like over-familiarity on duty -- it distracts and detracts from the mission at hand."

"I wouldn't expect otherwise. There's a wealth of case history for me to draw on, you know. I had a class in which we endlessly debated the psychology of command, and officers who pursue it."

That startled him a little. He studied her as if she were a new life form. Evidently, it hadn't occurred to him that she might understand that. "Well, we can talk about that later. We have a vacation to plan -- I think you need to pick up a few things, and then we have all of Earth to find sights to see in -- how do you feel about Rome?"

She gaped at him. "I can't afford -- "

"You'll do me a favor if you come along," he insisted. "I'm going anyway, and I would miss you if you didn't go. Be independent when you get paid, I want to take you with me."

Deanna sighed heavily and leaned into his arms; he happily held her closer. "I hope you don't mind if I sit here for a while."

"Mind? I might complain if you got up."

"Hmm," she purred when his hands moved down her waist, the robe sliding loosely with his fingers. Then he ran his right hand down her thigh, found her knee, slid up her skin beneath the robe -- she tensed as his fingertips played along her bare thigh, then along her hip until he caressed her right buttock, slowly. Deanna shivered at his touch and kissed him again.

But he wasn't being demanding, or showing any urgency -- he didn't react to the robe sliding away to the floor, other than to slide his left hand from her breast around to her back to bring her in closer. He kissed her more fervently than before. But instead of doing as she expected, he eventually eased off and she moved aside, sitting next to him as she sensed his shifting mood.

"Jean-Luc?"

"As much a crime as it may be... you should get dressed. We have a shuttle to catch."

She smiled merrily at him. "Do you have everything planned out already?"

"You told me once that you like surprises. Was that true?" He was smug, and enjoying himself.

"I have the feeling I'll enjoy everything you have in mind."

 

\------------------

 

She was right, she decided hours later, standing in a different hotel room on the other side of the planet. She was enjoying everything he had in mind. The new dress she had gotten in a boutique down the street, a lovely green silk, flattered her figure, though she was still too thin. She finished pinning up her hair on the back of her head and left the bedroom.

He turned from the view -- the Mediterranean was gorgeous, she had difficulty believing how different two oceans on the same world could be, but the water definitely seemed to be a more brilliant shade of blue -- and smiled broadly as she approached. "Lovely."

"I'm glad you approve. Thank you, so much, for everything. I know shopping wasn't fun for you."

"Watching you enjoy yourself had its appeal. It's clear you've been deprived of a favorite pastime for too long." His hands on her shoulders were more confident than before. His smile went sly. "Are we ready for something to eat?"

"I had breakfast six hours ago, by my count. What did you have in mind?"

He held out his arm. She grinned at him and took it, and went with him from their bright sunshine-filled suite down the corridor of the second floor of their hotel.

"You're spoiling me," she commented as they descended the stairs to the lobby.

"Perhaps I'm attempting to offset your feeling neglected later on, when I'm so focused on duty that I become distant."

He wasn't lying, or entirely joking, though there was a lighthearted flavor to the statement. Deanna proudly accompanied him into the restaurant associated with the hotel, and sat down with him at a table near a window. She was aware of scrutiny, from several directions, but focused on the menu and her companion. Once the business of ordering was done, he folded his hands on the table and regarded her with a seriousness that led to her quietly waiting for him to speak.

"It might be prudent to discuss... expectations," he said quietly.

"Mine, or yours?"

He sighed, as if resigning himself to something. "I think yours are more of a concern for me, at the moment."

"All right. What do you need to know?"

 He gave her a dubious look, as if asking why she would bother to make him repeat himself.

"I expect to do as I wanted to before you came. I was planning to leave Earth, go to Malthusia, spend time with you to see if we can continue along the trajectory I thought we were on, all this time talking through subspace. I was so happy to see you -- I thought you might be in agreement with me, and that it was possible we were feeling the same about each other. I didn't expect you to be so -- "

He spent a moment feeling muddled, his eyes nearly closed; he seemed to be peering through his lashes at the candle flickering at the edge of the table closest to the window.

"I'm not twelve," she blurted, frustrated. "You don't have to protect me."

A chagrined smile accompanied the lightening of his mood. "No."

"You apparently think I'm too young, too naive, and I have to question why you believe that. Why would you come to my graduation at all? Why would you keep talking to me, all this time?"

"You're asking questions I've asked myself, actually. I think the simplest answer is the correct one."

"Occam's razor isn't always the best guide. Sometimes problems are more complex than that. I also question the wisdom of applying the scientific method to relationships. Perhaps you're overthinking things?"

His eyes flicked up to her face, and the smile broadened. "I appreciate your forthrightness. The way you confront me, when I'm being ridiculous, without simply telling me I'm ridiculous. I wasn't applying Occam's razor, simply observing that my obfuscations and anxious wandering about in excuses to avoid risks implicit in -- "

She started to giggle at him, covering her mouth with her hand. The waiter arrived with wine, saving her from whatever scolding his insulted expression might have accompanied. She waited until the waiter left them with full glasses and sipped her noir, pleased to find the tart wine to her liking.

"You're only pompous when you're under a great deal of stress," she said at last. "That at least is an observable pattern."

"No, I'm probably also that way at the dig. Or on duty, depending. But when it comes to -- yes. When I'm nervous."

"So what is the simplest answer you think is correct?"

Now he struggled for words again, looking out the window, sipping wine. He looked at her again after a moment. "You yelled at me about being traumatized by past situations. I met someone, before the court-martial. She was smart, very sharp, assertive -- almost aggressive. Opinionated. I could have fallen for her. Almost did."

He was doing it again, flooding himself with conflicted, strong emotions and losing the ability to put things into words. Deanna put down her wine glass and went sober. "What did she do to hurt you?"

He sat quite still and almost sneered at the tabletop. "She used something I said in the bedroom against me, in the courtroom. I didn't know she was the prosecuting attorney. I knew she was working for the JAG, but she didn't tell me everything."

His sorrow and pain were nearly enough to start her sobbing, but she caught herself in time and wiped away a few tears with a napkin. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't the only thing that led to questioning my career -- it was a large part of my discontent for a long time, however."

Deanna nodded, thinking about how the undercurrent of depression she'd sensed in him on Risa had shadowed him. "I knew Will for almost two years. I thought I knew him well enough. I thought we could be friends. If it had been a situation a client was in, I could have been more objective and seen the hints that he wasn't as I saw him. He said the right things. He wanted me to have the career I wanted, and he wanted me to be happy, but it bothered him when I started to move in directions he didn't like, voice opinions he didn't agree with, and it was difficult for me to recognize that under all his respect and support he was making an assumption. He proved it earlier today. He called, and despite all my insistence that I didn't want to go backward, wouldn't go that way again, he wanted to talk about us -- he came all the way to Earth to do it. You knew, but I couldn't see it because I wasn't able to be that objective. We can't be about matters of the heart. It's the way it always is."

He was appreciative of her effort, and reaching for his wine he settled back in his chair and appraised her anew. "I think that I was most shaken by seeing you, as an ensign, being reminded that the wise and witty person I speak to so often is actually less than half my age. It shook me because I've not once thought about how young you are. On Risa it wasn't an issue because I wasn't feeling as I do now."

"I'm not sure I understand why you think it's an issue, but I suppose it has to do with motives. My mother has had lovers younger than I am -- but she never felt the same about them, as you do about me, so that would be a significant difference."

Jean-Luc actually flinched, visibly, and once again went through a few moments of shock, then awe. "It is different," he said softly. "And I think, actually, that my feelings on the matter are changing with every moment I spend with you."

Dinner came to interrupt that conversation. She had let him order for her, and struggled a little with the shellfish. "I've never had this before," she exclaimed. "What are they?"

"Oysters. You pick them up and tip them in."

"Is this Klingon? I don't like Klingon."

"No, this is Terran. It's seafood. Molluscs, harvested from the ocean." He showed her how she could add one of the condiments that came with them -- lemon juice or shallot vinegar. She nearly choked on the first one, but the second with vinegar suited her palate and went down smoothly. He watched her put down a third and fourth with a peculiar little smile.

"What are you laughing about?"

He had a plate of what he called mussels, similar but in smaller shells, and they came with a fork to eat them with. "Oysters were considered an aphrodisiac," he confessed, after a moment of consideration. "I didn't think about that."

"As long as it's nothing dangerous," she said, picking up another.

"So no remarks about trying to seduce you?"

"That would be impossible."

He paused in picking up his wine glass. "Impossible?"

"You can't seduce a willing person, can you?"

Jean-Luc's surprised-and-anxious expression made her grin. "For a moment I thought you were issuing a challenge."

"I could do that, I suppose, but I'm already so selective that it feels unnecessary."

He involved himself in polishing off the mussels and draining the last of his wine. Stalling, she thought.

"I'm not feeling too confident about myself. I really have lost a lot of weight. I didn't notice how my hips are so pronounced. So I don't think I'll be wearing my bathing suit for now," she said, pushing aside her empty plate.

"You didn't buy a suit." He seemed to access memory for a moment. "Oh."

"It's actually a little embarrassing how little I paid attention to myself. My hair is dull and lifeless, my skin is dry -- I've been so focused on trying to pass the technical coursework and not spend anything."

He watched the waiter remove dishes, and ordered a tarte. Once the waiter was gone he faced her seriously. "When you were saying before that you were thinking about Vulcan, were you serious?"

"At this point the only way I'm remaining in Starfleet is if I am able to be with you," she said.

It led to dismay and shock. He sighed, slumping a little. "Why?"

"I knew I had to train with weapons. I knew so many things, but experiencing it -- I had to do things I would never have to do in private practice, as a clinical psychologist. I don't want to use weapons or fly shuttles, or perform first aid procedures, or build things. I'm supposed to be a counselor. And my complete uselessness only frustrated the other cadets and the instructors. I can't think of why I should stay in an organization that expects me to do things I'm no good at doing."

"Why would being with me be any different?" he asked, crossing his arms. "My expectations would be the same as any commanding officer's."

"I might care enough about what you think to go to extraordinary lengths to succeed. I certainly didn't care about the opinions of the instructors who were bullying me to meet their standards."

He snorted at that, then seemed to wander off into memory for a bit. "I'm sorry your time at the Academy wasn't more enjoyable."

"I know you have fond memories of it. So many do. I really wish I was better suited to what was expected of me."

"I wish I could have helped," he said.

Shaking her head, Deanna tried not to think about the miserable showing she'd made in some of the trainings. "I appreciate that. But I don't see how you could have made me stronger, or faster, or smarter about weapons."

Jean-Luc's eyelids dropped as he thought intensely about something for a few minutes. The waiter returned with their dessert, a fruit pastry that looked decadent. Deanna took a bite -- pear and some sort of berry. "This is very good," she said.

"What will you do if you decide you don't want to be in Starfleet?" he asked softly.

She smiled at him. "Set up a private practice. I can do that anywhere, so I would do it wherever you are."

He seemed stunned by it. "That's...."

"Unless you don't want me to do that," she added.

"I would. It's simply not what I expected. I would expect you to follow whatever goals you have."

She frowned, just a little. "But that would be what I'm doing -- at least until I have a reason to do otherwise. Are you assuming that I wouldn't want to be with you? I thought you would remember that I really have no interest in casual relationships, or long distance."

He gave a polite smile, and began to eat his dessert. "Would you like to go for a walk? Thanks to the time difference we have plenty of time."

"I think that would be nice." Deanna ate in silence, letting him work through whatever reservation he had until he felt he had more to say. Working through it would take time. She had enough awareness of his feelings and his thoughts on the matter to believe that he would.

 

 

 


	3. Jean-Luc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; where little fear grows great, great love grows there.
> 
> William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 2

 

Jean-Luc lay in the sunshine on the deck and tried not to think about how concerned he was, about anything.

She looked like a starved, deprived version of the woman he'd met on Risa, when he'd seen her on the stage at graduation. Hollow-eyed, thin, and with a mockery of a smile. She had suffered at the Academy, and he couldn't stop the self-recrimination -- he'd encouraged her enthusiastically on Risa when she had told him her full plan, to go forth and heal the psychological wounds of officers. He had looked forward to hearing about her adventures as a cadet. Surely someone so lively and engaging would have no problems. And intelligent -- she was easily one of the more intelligent people he'd met. She'd passed the entrance exam with flying colors.

For two years she had said very little about much other than grades and struggles with assignments, and he'd worried. He had even anticipated that she might attempt to ask him questions -- as much as he didn't care to think about it, he knew he was talked about in classes. But she'd never done that to him.

 _Why_ hadn't he come to check on her?

Of course, he knew why -- it was easier not to be a damned idiot, across the quadrant from her where she couldn't sense the foolish old man's feelings. She was assuming that he had a problem with her youth -- he did, but it wasn't necessarily as much an obstacle as she had guessed. She should have been happier. She should have been fit, strong, confident and proudly standing in the uniform, saluting him.

He should have asked. Just one of the times he'd wondered what was really going on, and felt concerned.

Wincing, he sat up and reached for his glass of water. The sliding door nearby opened, and she emerged in a robe -- what mental gymnastics he had to do to ignore how tempting she was in a robe, with her hair in disarray around her face -- and a happy grin. "Did you enjoy your massage?" she asked.

"Of course." He'd enjoyed it in the minimal way that he ever had -- it reminded him of physical therapy after a major injury. He had relaxed somewhat, but this had really been about getting her to begin to reverse the damage. She'd insisted on spending time with him, so he decided 'they' needed the spa.

Deanna sat on the edge of the lounge chair next to him and leaned over to take his hand from his thigh. "Liar."

He sighed. But she didn't appear upset, so he smiled ruefully. "Did you enjoy yours?"

"Of course. It was lovely." She was braiding her hair, leading to the gapping of the front of the loosely tied robe. Something about the way she was looking to the side instead of at him suggested to him that not all was well.

"What's wrong?"

That led to her eyes focusing on his. "Wrong?"

"Deanna," he said, with the faint suggestion of a scolding.

She sat with her hands in her lap. The robe was again far too large, and sagged loosely, showing off her small breasts. Smaller than he remembered, actually. "I ignore things, you know that. Especially things that aren't worth the energy."

"Deanna."

She shook her head, looked down at her lap, and pursed her lips. "The masseuse was enjoying it too much and I couldn't block it out, so I couldn't relax completely. Part of the reason I don't seek such things often, actually. People can't help how they feel."

He reached over to press a button on the side table next to the large floral arrangement. One of the staff, the blond girl who'd greeted them on their arrival, came out with an obsequious smile. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"I have a request -- my friend here is an empath, and while I'm sure her masseuse is skilled enough, the way he reacted to her was not conducive to a relaxing massage for her, since she could sense how he felt."

"Oh," the girl exclaimed, scowling as if she'd just heard the most disturbing news. "I am so sorry, Miss."

"I understand that it's impossible to expect someone to have complete control over their emotions, but I had hoped you might be able to find someone who would not react to her with undue emotions?"

"Of course. If you would come back inside when you are ready, I will have someone to help you, Miss," the girl exclaimed. She hurried back inside, on a mission.

Deanna stared at him in shock.

"They were supposed to provide you a service. If accommodations can be made they should be."

"You're right," she said faintly.

He came upright and reached across the gap between the chairs to take both her hands in his. "I understand why you keep so much to yourself. I want to respect your choice to share or not share things about yourself with others, as you choose, but I can't let you keep suffering for it."

To his dismay, she pulled her hands free and covered her face with them.

"I should have come to see you," he murmured. "I knew there had to be more to it than you were telling me. You're not taking care of yourself, Deanna, you can't just let things happen to you -- you could have taken a semester off. You could have done it differently, or not at all if it was what you wanted."

"I wanted to handle it myself, because that's what I should be able to do," she said, some of the anguish throbbing in her voice. She held her hands together in front of her nose, as if praying. She even closed her eyes. "I didn't want to be rescued. I could have asked Mother for help and she would have done it, complaining constantly the whole time but she would have given me enough to live by myself and then some, but I couldn't do that. If I was going to survive in Starfleet I had to survive without her, or you."

His throat closed around what he wanted to say; it was poor timing. She was upset and crying, and it wouldn't help. He remembered being with his classmates -- in the dorms, later roommates in an apartment, sharing everything and supporting each other, studying together, loaning each other things and being a substitute family for each other. It didn't have to be the way she'd had it. But telling her about that would only highlight the misery of her experience. So instead he held out his arms, let her sit on his chair next to him, and held her for a moment.

"You're not alone," he said, pressing his lips against her temple. "And you don't have to be alone again. Get your massage. We'll go down to the beach, after, and we can read our book."

Her arms wound around his neck and she leaned heavily on him. After a few minutes, she moved away and went inside, peeling off the robe as she went -- no embarrassment about nudity, no matter what.

Jean-Luc reached for his padd, settling back on the chair, returning to his study of an article he'd found. Tried not to think about the disturbing prominence of her hip bones. She wasn't skeletal, but she lacked the curves he remembered, from days spent on a Risan beach trying not to look at her sunbathing, while they talked about psychology, or the book he was reading.

When she returned a full hour and half later, it was nearly lunch time. She was visibly more relaxed -- drowsy, in fact. She clutched the robe around her and came to perch on the edge of his lounge chair, then sprawled atop him and curled into his side. His arm cradled her automatically against him.

"Better massage?"

"Yessssss," she sighed. "You're warm."

"That would be the power of the sun. Would you like to join me for a walk to the beach?"

"Innaminnit."

He chuckled at the first light snore, let his head fall back and set aside the padd. It only took ten minutes for her to wake up again. Her forearms crossed on his chest, she raised her head. With her face so close to his, he had no choice but to notice -- her eyes really were black on black, and the happy lights in them were back.

"I don't want to go to the beach," she said.

"Really?" He ran his thumb along the curve of her ear, tucking stray hair behind it. 

"It's too cold."

He wasn't surprised she wasn't tolerating the cooler climate. For some reason, at the moment, it was colder in Capri than in San Francisco. "Then where shall we go?"

Deanna's head sank to settle on his chest, her arms moving open wide to drape over his shoulders. "This is nice."

"I agree. However, we've been here for a few hours, and I suspect they have other customers. Get dressed and I'll take you back to the hotel. We can eat lunch there."

And, as they walked down the street passing storefronts, he noticed her glancing at displays in windows, and when she actually slowed down to look at something, caught her by the arm and pulled her in the door. It was, perhaps, setting a bad precedent, but he'd stopped caring when he noticed how the dress she had put on that morning had a hole in a seam and the bright red fabric had faded.

While he paid the clerk, she lingered to admire some shoes at another display. The clerk, an older gentleman, smiled benevolently in her direction. "You have a lovely daughter," he said.

Jean-Luc narrowed his eyes at the man and turned to collect his companion and head for the door. She tucked her hand through his arm and they departed the store with another dress in a bag and with her wearing the coat she'd seen in the window.

"I don't know how I'm going to repay you," she murmured, her cheek brushing his shoulder. 

"By being warm and healthy," he replied.

She smiled sadly, as they strolled along the street toward the hotel. The little town of Capri had been preserved through the centuries as it had been, some of it restored, and many of the locals dressed to match the old world charm of the place. At the moment they seemed to be the only tourists on the block. 

"You look sad," he commented as they reached the entrance of their hotel. The doors opened automatically for them to enter. 

"Because I have to accept that I am young, and people will see me as your child sometimes, especially on Earth in places that don't see many non humans. The man in the store probably has a daughter. He was feeling paternal, while he helped me."

Jean-Luc slipped his arm around her waist as they went up the stairs. 

"Perhaps you will learn to accept it and not feel angry," she murmured.

"I don't know how you tolerate it."

"I have to. It's impossible to avoid the feelings of others, for me. The best I can do is spend time with people who understand and feel... well, calm and constant. You were that for me, when we were on Risa. It helped me immensely."

"So now that we're actually talking about it, tell me the rest of how it was, at the Academy?" He escorted her to the plush, overstuffed off-white sofa -- a far cry from the upright red velour couches at the hotel in San Francisco. He took the shopping bag from her and set it aside, as she took off the new coat and tossed it on the end of the sofa.

"Why? What good will it do?" She sat and crossed her legs. The lavender dress that had replaced the red one after she discovered the hole in the seam was not his favorite. It too had seen better days.

"I suppose I'm concerned, still."

The dirty look she gave him made him smile -- he had a bad habit of enjoying the company of stubborn women, and she was no exception, this petite Betazoid with no repentance or remorse for being blinder than a Bolian bat about her own needs. 

"Not unless you tell me something first."

Sighing, he retrieved the hotel's padd from the table in the entry, where it usually sat in the charging dock next to the communications panel. He sat next to her while sorting through a menu to get to drinks. "What do you want to know?"

"When you fell in love with me."

He attempted a scowl. It only made her grin, as she pulled off her shoes and leaned over to see what he was ordering.

"Beer?"

"And lunch. Would you like anything?"

"A Rigellian rum fizz, and some blue leaf salad."

"There don't appear to be off world options on the menu. Perhaps a mai tai?"

He handed off the padd and let her sort through and read descriptions of the drinks. When they were delivered, he stared at the tall frosty glass, thought about asking what the brown and white swirled concoction was, and shrugged it off and handed it to her. His pilsner was adequate to his purposes. They settled at the table to eat lunch together.

"I can't answer your question," he said after finishing his sandwich, going back to her impertinent request. "I would expect you would already know."

"There's a fine line between attraction and lust and desire, and love -- I tend to define that particular moment as when the person becomes aware, not by anything I can sense."

"Aware. Or consciously admitting it -- I suppose that it was likely during our time on Risa, and it took a few months for me to admit that I might feel that way...."

She studied him across the table with a knowing, slight smile that suggested her thoughts were straying to other things. He sipped his beer, ate a chip, and returned the smile.

Deanna ducked her head, turning shy, in that way would have sometimes -- she seemed particularly young in moments like this, when she was flirtatious in an almost giddy manner. She sipped her drink, whatever it was, and nibbled on some green thing out of the salad bowl in front of her.

"When did you?" he asked. Tit for tat, after all.

"Oh," she said, hugging herself. "I started to really miss you between calls last year. I had these dreams...."

He wondered if she realized that she actually shivered, thinking about it, her shoulders waggling a little. Her eyes closed.

"Dreams," he prompted.

When she looked at him again, he began to wonder again if he would find her in his bed tonight -- she had an intense, hungry sort of gleam in her eyes. But she looked away again, out the window, her cheeks flushed.

"We are once again faced with an afternoon to spend -- should I read to you? We have a chess board as well. The clouds appear to be coming up -- it may rain."

When he turned from looking out the window, he found that she looked tired again. Her eyelids drooped and she yawned. Proof that she had pushed herself too hard for too long. He stood, brought what was left of his beer to the end of the sofa nearest the window, slid open the pane slightly -- it did smell like rain and he'd always enjoyed that -- and sat down, putting the glass on the end table and picking up the padd he'd brought that contained quite a number of books.

She joined him, but leaned on him as if propping herself up. He started to read out loud part of the book they had been reading, and she fell asleep there with her head on his shoulder. Jean-Luc set aside the book and held her close, as the rain started to fall.

He dozed off himself, faded in and out, and became aware of when she awoke as she started to move against him, her lips finding his. Easy, to kiss her back, the gentle interplay of lips and tongues. Then she moved -- settling astride his thighs, rolling her hips forward. She had an intensity he hadn't seen in her before. Outside the rain started to fall again, hissing down out of the sky. She had his shirt bunched in her hands and her weight shifted against his chest.

"Deanna," he said against her lips.

She sat back on his knees and looked down at him. Her hair was a mess; he'd had his hands in it. Her lips were swollen and she blinked at him as if confused. But she moved to sit on her own next to him. "I fell asleep?"

"Yes. You were perhaps dreaming?"

"I think I was. I -- " She seemed to be taking stock. "Sorry."

"I wasn't complaining," he said with a smirk. "I simply prefer a conscious partner. I've heard of sleep walking but that was... different."

She glanced at the window, and looked at him again with a subdued smile. And then away -- shy, again. "I wasn't exactly asleep, but it was a transition from an intense dream to something else."

"You've been asleep for a while. How do you feel?"

"I wish I could stop falling asleep. I don't want to spend the entire three weeks sleeping."

Jean-Luc chuckled, thinking about the twenty-four hours following his graduation -- drinking followed by a long blackout and waking hung over, to sleep for nearly a day. "We could finish the conversation we started yesterday, if you like."

"Which one?" She hugged herself, a sure sign that she was cold.

"The one about expectations. We left it incomplete -- you were fairly clear that you intend to follow me around regardless." And since it was becoming obvious that they were moving toward the part of the relationship he usually started with, and neither of them were interested in making that a temporary affair, perhaps it was time to resume discussing the relationship.

"Unless you don't like that idea?"

"I expect you will find that I will let you do as you please. I'm no expert on relationships. I tend to dive in without really thinking about it, because I haven't expected anyone to stay -- nothing has been serious. Nothing ever discussed in this manner." There had been the one time he had contemplated leaving Starfleet, to be with Jenice, but that hadn't been discussed with her at all. He'd simply chosen a path. Not unlike Mr. Riker -- seeing the other side of it, being there to help Deanna through her heartbreak, had brought up a resurgence of pain, not his own but sympathy for what Jenice likely felt, as he hadn't even bothered to send a message, simply left her at a cafe while he rode away from Earth at warp speed. That, in the end, had been what propelled him to attend Deanna's graduation despite his misgivings and cowardly leanings. 

Of course, he had in the end started to flee, just the same. 

He realized then that this line of thinking was changing his mood, which was affecting Deanna. She kept hugging herself, and staring at the floor. He thought she was starting to look upset.

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know what to think. I don't know -- what you want. I love you."

She sounded like she expected him to reject her. "What I want," he began, but stopped to think about it again. She had been going along with him all this while, where he had expected her to show some of the assertiveness he'd known was there. Apparently, like him, she still struggled with this part of her life. It was clear she hadn't thought past being with him.

"So when we get to the space station, I'll be spending the majority of my time in command. It's usually a stable and routine job, but this particular station has a history -- being on the Neutral Zone in the vicinity of several other small territories of species who tend to seek violent solutions to diplomatic problems, it's been under attack a number of times. I'm missing a first officer, a medical officer and the operations staff is short a dozen people."

She stared at him with raised eyebrows and an incredulous smile. He was happy to see a shift in her posture -- she had sat up, difficult to do in the slouchy soft couch, as if coming to attention.

"I anticipate that a fair number of station personnel will be in need of counseling, so I'd guess you'll be busy as well." He stopped talking, as she was giving him an amused, fond look that distracted him.

"What is this space station like? The only one I've been to was McKinley."

"Oh, this is smaller than that -- we'll have a crew complement of six hundred forty-two, and some of those will have their time divided between ship repair and station maintenance. There are two commercial decks. What are you laughing about?"

She wasn't laughing, but something clearly amused her. "Myself, really. I also should have guessed that you might resort to the practical side of things."

"Of course. I'm a Starfleet officer -- it's more than just a job, and now that I'm back to it, I'll be that obsessed about it. Also you have your own trauma about relationships, and I wanted to see if you would stop looking like the world was ending, if I talked about something else for a moment."

Her amusement slid into sad acceptance. "It probably doesn't help that I had to deal with Will just yesterday. All it did was remind me of how it felt before."

"I'm sorry that my mood went that direction," he said. "I'm sure it didn't help that I started to think about Jenice, and how I left her waiting for me all those years ago, and then how I almost ran away from you after the graduation. I'm glad you came after me the way you did. It saved me from another regret."

"Oh," she said, startled. "Is that what it was?"

"I'm afraid I do tend to think about the past and regret things I've done, at times. It occurs to me that I should have told you that so you don't misinterpret."

Deanna started to rub her own arms -- it was, he realized, starting to feel colder. The storm outside was picking up momentum, and a crack of thunder made both of them jump a little. He got up to shut the window he'd left open. Deanna went to her room, and returned wearing her robe over the lavender dress. They met again in front of the couch, and stood facing each other for a moment. He heard the chirp of a communicator then, and she opened her hand -- the comm badge in her palm chirped again, and again, every eight seconds as they would when a computer had been instructed to continue attempting contact until a response was received, then alert the initiating party.

"It could be Starfleet with orders, I suppose," she said sadly.

"Only one way to find out. Want me to leave?"

Instead of answering she took two steps and leaned against him, pressed her badge against the soft pile of his sweater a few inches from her chin as she rested her cheek against his shoulder, and put her arms around his waist after tapping it to make the connection. 

"Troi here," she said softly.

A pause, likely as the computer summoned the other party, and then a man's voice emerged from the badge. Jean-Luc felt her flinch against him.

"Deanna?" Jean-Luc heard a lot of anxiety and no small amount of outrage in that single word.

"I'm not going to answer again, Will. I told you to stop -- I mean it, and I don't want to talk to you about it." She tapped the badge again to close the connection, plucked it off the sweater and pitched it on the floor, sending it skittering under the end table.

"You knew it was him, didn't you?"

Deanna hugged him tightly -- more for comfort than to express affection, he thought. "I have a very broad effective range, yes. If I know someone well enough I can sense them at a considerable distance. I think he's still in San Francisco. It's a relief that he can't ask Starfleet to locate my badge without justification."

"How many times has he ignored your request to stop contacting you?" The ire in his voice couldn't be helped, and he was certain she sensed it anyway.

"This is the second time. If he tries again I'm simply going to lodge a complaint, formally, and they'll put a block in the communication system."

"I think you should do that anyway."

"When we get back to San Francisco," she murmured.

The window pane rattled, as the wind blew -- a tree below the lower edge of the window was tossing to and fro, and a flicker of lightning cracked the dark wall of clouds in front of them. Jean-Luc held her and let her cling for a while; she made a warm, soft bundle in her robe.

The communicator chirped quietly.

Jean-Luc closed his arms around her tightly, then pulled away and went after the badge. "No," Deanna protested.

"Nothing you said to him has worked. I can end it."

She deflated, her shoulders sinking, and hugged herself again. Anger clouded her eyes and dragged her mouth into a frown. 

Another chirp.

Jean-Luc slapped the badge to his chest with the practiced gesture of a seasoned officer. "Yes," he said with firm, authoritative ire, meeting her eyes and trying to give her a reassuring smile.

Another pause. Deanna's mouth actually twitched into a slight smile -- sensing the shock, perhaps.

"Who is this?"

"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard," he announced. "Who is this?"

"Lieutenant-Commander William Riker, sir," came the crisp, almost automatic response. "There must be some glitch, I was attempting to contact Ensign Deanna Troi."

"Yes, I'm aware of that -- I am her commanding officer, and it has come to my attention that you are harassing her despite her requests for you to stop. I find this behavior unacceptable and if you attempt to contact her again, I will at her request assist her in filing charges. Is that clear?"

A few seconds of silence, and then he snapped, "Yes, sir!"

"Picard out." He took the badge off his sweater and tossed it on the dining table. "That should do it. 

 Deanna was gazing at him with an expression that made him somewhat uncomfortable -- admiration and affection, and something a little more intense, as she approached slowly. "My hero," she said, without a trace of mockery.

"It wasn't -- "

She grabbed his head and kissed him. A long, thorough tongue tangler, and by the end she'd managed to send her hands wandering up beneath his sweater. 

"Are we done talking?" she whispered, her lips tickling his cheek.

"Done," he muttered, picking her up by the waist. She draped over his shoulder, making a soft approving sound, and as he reached his bed he put her down on it and pulled off his sweater. He half-turned away from her to take off shoes and pants. When he turned back she had already climbed into his bed, shoving aside the covers, and it became evident that when she had gone for the robe earlier, she'd taken off the lavender dress.

 She watched him coming to her with a sly smile, and he settled in the sheets next to her, reaching to touch her face. They came together to kiss again. This time, he had to contend with the sensation of her skin against his, her breasts against his chest, her hands wandering down his sides, his hips. It made him aware that he'd gone soft. He'd known well enough that he wasn't exercising enough, and knew he would be going back to a stricter regimen shortly. But as her hand drifted over a roll of flab he felt a pang of self-consciousness. 

She pulled back from the kiss and let her hand fall on the sheet between them, and propped her head up on her fist, elbow in the pillow. "Are we going to be feeling that way with every touch?"

He flopped on his back and stared at the white ceiling. "Deanna...."

He heard the very-soft sigh of movement against sheets, and glanced at her to find she too was on her back, and rubbing her eyes.

"No," he exclaimed immediately. "Oh, not -- no, no, no." He reached across and drew her to him, and ended with her on his chest. She looked him in the eye, couldn't help it thanks to proximity, and he sighed at the sight of tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Stop, no, it's not -- please don't think I feel -- it isn't you, Deanna. Listen to me -- "

But she was crying, and curling up on herself in humiliation. She'd never done this before and he didn't know what to do, so he held her and waited it out, smoothing her hair out of her face, and wished he could fix this -- whatever it was. He wasn't certain why she was so upset.

Finally, she seemed to settle down. He held her quietly and waited, as she lay there with her head on his shoulder.

"Deanna?"

"I know I look terrible," she whispered.

"But you don't. It isn't why.... Let's sit up for a moment."

When they were sitting together against the pillows at the head of the bed, he put his arms around her again. She didn't look at him.

"I'm feeling inadequate. It isn't you, not at all. Do you believe me?"

"Yes," she said, sounding a little congested and teary. She started to shake her head, eyes closed, more tears oozing between her lashes. "I just -- felt -- you were so encouraging to me, so often, and so happy for me that I was at the Academy. And then I come out of it such a wreck that I'm thin and -- I'm nervous. I feel... scared. I know there's no reason to be. I know -- but I can't help it."

"You're cold. Let's get you under the covers."

As he pulled them up over her she looked at him with wide eyes still glimmering with tears, and something about her expression made him pause. He smiled, ignoring that he felt a little chilly himself, and was happy to see she responded in kind.

"I love you," she said, and smiled brilliantly at him.

A sigh, a nod, and he kissed her cheek. "I love you, Deanna."

"I suppose I've thought about this so much that -- I'm sorry. I wanted to be -- "

"I'm going to get some tea. Why don't you meditate for a bit, and relax, and I'll be back in with the book -- I'll read to you."

She nodded, on the verge of crying again, so he leaned and kissed her forehead, slid off the bed, plucked his robe from the bedpost and slung it on as he walked toward the door.

Room service was remarkably quick. He watched the waiter leave, and brought the tray and the padd into the bedroom. She watched him return and accepted a cup of tea, and drank it slowly while he read out loud and sipped his Earl Grey.

"Thank you," she said, in a pause as he turned a page. "For being understanding."

"I think it's safe to say that everyone has experienced the wrong kind of tension at least once," he said, reaching for his tea on the night stand. "It's not the end of the world, Deanna. We have plenty of time. In fact, you can just wake me up the next time you feel like acting out a dream."

Some of her slyness returned, just a little, at that suggestion. "I can sleep here tonight?"

He frowned at that. "I cannot imagine why I would ever object to that. Were you... waiting for permission?"

Some of the anxiety returned to her face; she slid further down under the covers. "I didn't want to make assumptions."

"I haven't said anything because I did not want to pressure you." He tried not to feel too irritated with himself, for not making it clearer; she was that young, after all, and he had no idea what arrangement she had ever had with the idiot she was engaged to before. He'd assumed that her confidence would extend to this. No matter. He touched her cheek, smiled, and hoped that a reassurance was enough. "I think I mentioned before, that I'm not an expert at this, so I'm waiting for you to do as you see fit -- this is on your schedule."

"It's almost dinner time, isn't it?" she asked. "I'm getting hungry."

She was getting her appetite back, and on schedule, and he approved -- he reached for the other padd. "Any preferences?"

"I've enjoyed what you've ordered so far. Surprise me. But I'd like chocolate of some kind for dessert."

"Yes, I remember," he said, smiling at her. "They have some decadent German chocolate cake, according to the clerk at the desk."

They ate at the dining table, admiring the sunset outside as the clouds broke, wearing robes, and she practically polished her plate. She leaned across to feed him a taste of the chocolate cake -- it was easily the richest cake he'd tasted. And then he watched her slowly eat the rest, licking frosting off the fork at the end. She made eating chocolate into foreplay, savoring every bite and closing her eyes in bliss.

Then she discovered that the bathroom in the master bedroom had a tub, not just a shower as in the other bedroom. He refused to get in with her initially; the tub wasn't very big. But when she called him in while she soaked in steaming water, she looked up at him with happy, sly eyes and reached dripping fingers at him. He took her hand, and she used the leverage to sit up out of the water, her breasts half submerged, and inclined her head invitingly. He shrugged off the robe, stepped into the other end of the tub, and settled with his legs around hers.

But then she grabbed the edges and moved, and came down on him, leaning down and kissing him with the fervor he'd expected before. She had him gasping, as she moved her hips and rubbed herself against him -- it shocked him when she took his erection in hand and moved herself down over it, and he forgot they were in a bathtub for a time, moving with her and sliding against her slick wet skin while the water sloshed over the edges.

It wasn't the most awkward first time, with someone, and it wasn't the most passionate. But she settled against him after he came and trembled in his arms, and he suspected she was still worked up and feeling too anxious to find her own release with intercourse. He held her until she stopped trembling and they left the bath, dried, wrapped up in robes against the chill and returned to his bed, where he let her fall asleep wrapped in his arms -- he wasn't accustomed to having someone in the bed, and had to move away from her once she slept to fall asleep himself.

They set no alarm, and so he came awake naturally to find the sun rising. And turned to let his fingers find their way along her hip, and woke her with some slow, intimate fondling that set her to writhing in his direction, and then moaning. He had three fingers in her when she came, and she kissed him and pressed herself against him.

"Good morning," she murmured, without a hint of anxiety or angst in her face. She looked sated, and sleepy, settling with her head on his shoulder. "Can we stay in today?"

"I had a dream, where I kept you in bed all day, trying to figure out all the different ways you like to be touched. And you were eating chocolate cake, among other things."

"Among other things?" She arched her back, pressing her nipples against his chest, then wriggling slowly down under the covers.

Not too young, he thought, smiling and closing his hands around fistfuls of covers.

 

* * *

 


	4. Deanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you understand that your feelings are triggered by what you think about an event and not by the event itself, you gain a measure of control. Although you cannot control the things (events) that happen to you, or change your feelings (after all, you feel the way you feel), you can change your thoughts. A change in thoughts often radically alters your feelings.
> 
> Julie A. Ross and Judy Corcoran

Deanna left her quarters and headed for her office. She had in hand the padd she always carried, now. It was her shield. She could be waylaid at any time by some friendly person who wanted to chitchat, and she wanted a choice in the matter -- an excuse to beg off from a conversation that could not be useful. She also carried the book Jean-Luc had left for her.

The starbase wasn't so difficult to live in, but it was obvious to her that small pools of people could be as difficult to manage as a larger group had been for her at the Academy, with the three thousand plus student base. Here it was isolated and people were easily bored. Many of them had jobs that were routine. There were restaurants, a theater, a handful of stores and bars, and not much else -- and judging from the array of complaints her clients brought her, it created problems, having no real outlet. They were so far out along the Neutral Zone there could be no quick trips to some pleasure planet.

Three days prior to the end of their leave together, Jean-Luc had started to re-orient them, talking about the rest of the information he'd been given about the base. As it happened, requesting a counselor had been based in actual necessity. And then he had informed her what to expect of him, defined what he had meant by 'distant' -- it led to a discussion of what she understood from her coursework. The classes for the counselors were not entirely helpful in understanding the challenges of command as he knew them.

She hadn't been very happy with the outcome of the conversation. He had imposed such a restrictive schedule on them that she thought he must certainly be overcompensating. But he wouldn't budge. And once they'd arrived on the station he had turned into a hard, demanding officer, tolerating no chatter in meetings. The immediate reaction of the people left on the senior staff was rejection and anger. It was a phenomenon she was familiar with; group norms had been set by a different CO, and change was always difficult, in any structure that had been in place for an extended period of time.

Now, two weeks into the first assignment of her Starfleet career, she was feeling no more confident in that realm than she had been at the Academy.

She entered the cafe as usual, to get the coffee and breakfast she normally did. Fruit and cereal, this morning. She preferred the cafe to the officer's mess. In the corner, she settled in with her padd and started to read. Jean-Luc was probably eating in his quarters. It felt strange, to be so close to him but hardly ever see him.

The cafe was mostly empty at the moment. She opened the book she'd found just outside her door that morning -- a rare thing, the paper book, but he seemed to treasure them -- and took out the note folded into the front of it. It was a daily occurrence, a book containing a note written in his handwriting -- another rarity, someone who used paper and pen. He didn't sign them. At some point during the day, she would find him and return the book.

_You remember, I hope, that discussion we had while we were walking in Rome. I hope to see you tonight at nineteen hundred._

"Good news?"

Deanna looked up into the face of the second officer, Tristan Yarborough. "Just a reminder of a good memory," she said, her smile fading somewhat. "Good morning, Commander."

A flicker of annoyance, but he restored the friendly smile almost at once. He pointed at the chair opposite her. She nodded, and he sat down. He was thin, and his sparse blond hair seemed to grow in tufts. Probably just carelessness with a brush.

"I didn't see you in the last meeting."

She shook her head. "I had a crisis with a client to attend to, as I told the captain. Did I miss anything?"

"Nothing much -- just more pedantics and orders. He's a harsh old bastard."

She kept a pleasant facade, as she did with clients, and stifled a sigh. "I tend to think that people are doing the best that they can, and there must be a reason for why they are as they are."

"Just what a psychologist would say." Tristan grinned at her and hefted his cup of coffee as if toasting her. "No doubt why he finds you so much more appealing than the rest of us."

She closed the book on the note and gave him a faintly-insulted scowl. "What do you mean?"

"He looks at you, he talks to you without that clipped tone he gets that says he's tolerating nonsense -- I mean, no one could talk to you with any malice certainly. But we really missed you at the meeting. He's nicer with you there."

It was enough to give her pause. She put the book on the table and considered what he was saying. "I don't imagine he's very happy that the station is in worse shape than he'd been told, or that the chief engineer suddenly quit and left four days before he got here."

"I guess I'm not terribly happy about Tory's sudden abandonment of her post either, but I can't blame her," Tristan said. "Since Captain Dunstan transferred off somewhere we've suffered a lot -- being attacked again by the Grizmar and losing four more people sure didn't help. Cabrera thinks we've been given a martinet to punish us."

"The briefing that I received suggested that it was felt that the staff here were overfamiliar, and that officers were undisciplined and careless."

"There you go. We've been judged and sentenced."

"Commander, I think you might have jumped to a conclusion that you might rethink -- it might be possible that station staff have become too complacent, set in their ways. Just because a commanding officer's approach might be different than what you've been accustomed to, does not mean that approach is wrong, or that you're being punished. If Starfleet were interested in punishing anyone there would be a court-martial in progress."

'There you go again," Tristan exclaimed. "The captain's apologist."

"The station counselor -- you assume that I'm on his side as if there is a side to be on. A perfect example of what I'm talking about. I reserve judgement because I'm supposed to -- it's the nature of my job. Repairing the station and organizing the staff are Captain Picard's job, my responsibilities are to treat trauma and help him by helping the staff. We're all Starfleet -- regardless of how you feel about anyone else on staff, we're on the same side."

Tristan smirked at that. It reminded her, irritatingly, of Will Riker. "Fresh out of the Academy and full of great ideas," he exclaimed.

"Your sarcasm is definitely helping me see the error of my ways," she shot back with a raised eyebrow. He chuckled at it, but she continued. "I'm a psychologist before I'm a Starfleet officer. Idealism has its place. Without some goal to aspire to, centuries of progress would never have happened -- that's true of Earth as well as every other planet. It certainly must have taken a great deal of effort on the parts of a minority of people, to get humans out of the cycle of violent reprisals and into the frame of mind to have amicable relations with each other."

"Well, shoot," Tristan said. "A historian too?"

"My father was very interested in his own history, yes. Even though he lived on Betazed, when he wasn't on his vessel. I suppose it's half my history as well."

"So your family was in Starfleet too? Five generations," Tristan exclaimed, tapping his chest. "My great-great-grandad was the chef on the first _Enterprise_."

"Is that the only reason you're in it?"

His smile waned. The question was posed in a near-clinical tone, with less friendly bonhomie than the conversation so far would have led him to expect. He had no doubt been hoping to get her chatting informally -- probably to follow through with getting to that magical point where a human male felt he could ask the woman out and stand a chance at being accepted, as he'd been attracted to her from the start. But she knew that anyone aboard might be a client, and she'd been cautioned by professors not to become too intimate with staff, at least not until she had a sense of who they all were and their needs. Counselors needed a certain distance from clients to do their work. She knew that sometimes very strong bonds resulted in service. It was part of why counselors were being put in the field at all. Relationships sometimes went awry, and created bias. Such bias could create situations such as the one here at Starbase 249.

Deanna finished a bowl of fruit in two bites and reached for her coffee. "I think you must have joined because you wanted to?"

"Yes, I wanted to -- all the great stories we were told as kids, you know? The adventure. The drama. But that's starship duty, and I got assigned here -- this is my third starbase, in fact."

"I heard a lot of stories about starships, too. My favorite involved an alien that looked like a tree and sang like a bird. But my father might have made that one up -- I was only six. I have the feeling he was censoring his stories."

Tristan snorted. "Yeah, there were a lot of things left out of the ones Dad told me."

"Would they have kept you from joining if you'd known?"

"Naw," Tristan said, slumping in the chair. He was thinking now about his life, past motivations, and not so involved in observing her or measuring her responses. "But I think I might have done some things differently."

"Such as?"

"I would have married Christina."

Not what she'd expected to hear. "Oh," she said, smiling a little at that.

"Water under the bridge, and all that," he said with a dismissive swipe of the hand. "Have you ever been married?"

"Almost. That did not happen as planned, either. So much of life doesn't. But, I do believe that we can make of the outcomes whatever we wish to make -- what actually determines our level of satisfaction in life is how we think about it. People who view defeats as potential opportunities tend to be more optimistic in general, and happier about their lives."

"Oh my god, you are just that way," he said, starting to shake his head. "But what else would you be? How old are you, anyway?"

Deanna picked up her book, her padd, and her cup, and left him there. She actually hoped he'd seen the anger in her face. Five years older than she was and he wanted to be ageist? On the way down the wide corridor she exchanged smiles with a few people she'd met in passing, and rode a lift up two levels to reach her office. It was near sickbay, as she was technically under the supervision of the chief medical officer. There still wasn't one -- it was one of the things Jean-Luc was trying to rectify. Apparently, the space station had a bit of a reputation, and officers he approached were saying no. He'd finally found someone, and she would be arriving shortly.

She involved herself in reading an article about family therapy. There were, she had discovered, several families with children on the station; one mother had asked her for help. When the door chime went off, she jumped -- she wasn't expecting anyone for two hours. "Come in," she said, glancing around as if things might be in disarray and she needed to tidy up.

The captain came in.

She stared -- he hadn't come into this office at all, and she had assumed he wouldn't. He strolled in and sat in the chair facing her desk. "Counselor."

"Captain," she responded in similar tone and mirroring his slight smile. Then she thought about what Tristan had said.

"I wanted to see how things have been, how the staff are responding," he said.

"Well enough. I have been dividing my time between formal appointments and informal encounters with the staff. I'd say from the shift in the general daily mood of the population you've been moderately successful in alienating at least two thirds of the people on the station."

His brows drew in. "Only two thirds?"

"I'm a little disappointed in you myself," she said. It got his attention in a way sarcasm didn't. Deanna set her jaw, inhaled slowly, and braced herself. "You've spent two weeks feeling sympathy for people you're snapping at. I thought you were here to effect repairs."

"These people were primed to dislike anyone who isn't their former commanding officer."

"So you're being a hardass on purpose?"

He gave her a look she knew by now, the one that said not to push him. "I'm no harder than some of the admirals and captains I've dealt with, you know."

"Yes, there were a couple of those at the Academy. They didn't make me cry, but there were plenty of cadets who did."

Jean-Luc settled back a little in the chair, eyeing her critically. "Am I making people cry?"

"Not yet. Angry, yes. But they were angry before we came. It's probably true they would dislike anyone, but you seem to be trying hard for that honor. I'm just confused as to why."

"This isn't the first time I've been through this sort of transition, you know. Give it time."

"If you're going to be completely convincing you need to be harder on me than you are."

That startled him. He frowned. "You haven't given me any reason to -- the others resist. What few orders I've given you, you've followed and without glaring or delaying."

"You told me that if I took this job, you expected me to tell you if I saw you doing anything that caused me any concern. So I did. And now it is your call on whether it makes any difference. I was talking to someone at breakfast, in fact, about his frustrations with how the staff are being punished."

"So I'm now some sort of retribution? For what?"

Deanna shrugged. "Not sure I can get the answer to that. Sometimes people feel unjustly punished, for crimes not committed, if the circumstance feels very harsh. Where did Captain Dunstan go, when he left?"

"I was told that he retired. Where he is physically, I couldn't tell you."

"How curious. For a staff so close to him, you'd think they would know that he retired, and be in contact with him."

"Perhaps there's more to it than we think. You'll get to the bottom of it." Jean-Luc leaned forward, tapped the cover of the book, and sat back again.

"Yes, I plan to be there. I think sending the note in a book titled _Great Expectations_ might have piqued my curiosity."

He was quite pleased by that, but after a moment's thought that mood turned. "It hasn't been easy, you know."

Deanna smiled sadly. "I know."

"Probably why I've been so cranky."

"Probably." She sighed, gazing at the cover of the worn book. "I understand, why you wanted to keep this, us, to ourselves for a while. For the same reasons I was asked to not jump into friendships before assessing everyone on staff. We need to understand the people involved before we are...."

She looked up to find him watching her with a smug smile. "Yes?"

"Fine. Yes."

"I did try," he said quietly.

"Yes, you tried to explain, but I didn't want to listen."

"Mm. But I didn't mind that so much, did I?"

Deanna stifled a smile that would quite probably have blinded him. That argument had ended nicely for both of them. "I don't have anything to argue about, any more."

"We don't need to argue."

"Good." She smiled shyly. "I have other things to talk about."

"I can think of a few things myself." He rose, and hesitated to gaze at her with a happy smile. "So you'll return my book later?"

"When I'm done with it. I may have a few questions." She watched him go, and spent a few minutes thinking about it -- just knowing she would have an opportunity to be with him again gave her mood a lift.

The day dragged by, of course, and after her final appointment for the afternoon she headed for the main station transporters. She received few orders directly from the captain, but he had sent her a terse missive requesting that she meet their new medical officer on his behalf, as he was scheduled to inspect the station's power source. That didn't make sense to her, given he wasn't an engineer, but it wasn't as though he couldn't simply order her to do it.

A tall woman and a boy were leaving the transporter room as she approached. "Hello," she said with a smile. "You must be Dr. Crusher? I'm Ensign Deanna Troi, the counselor. We'll be working together."

The woman smiled warmly at her and shook her hand. "This is my son Wesley. It's good to meet you."

Wesley looked to be about nine or ten, a thin boy wearing a pair of gray pants and a matching shirt. He smiled, but it lacked warmth or enthusiasm. Deanna sensed he wasn't enthusiastic about being there. "Hi," he said with forced cheer.

"Welcome aboard. I can show you to your quarters, if you'll follow me?"

"Thank you, Ensign."

On the walk back to the main corridor and down to the next turbolift, Deanna stole a few glances at the auburn-haired woman that she knew had been the wife of Jean-Luc's best friend. She was outwardly serene, pretty, and concerned about her son. The hand on the boy's shoulder, and the ongoing worry Deanna sensed, were the top two clues. The quarters they'd been assigned were down the corridor from hers, and as they entered, Wesley glanced around and veered left into the door she indicated was his bedroom without a word.

"He's usually friendlier," the doctor said with a sigh. "He doesn't like moving."

"One of the problems with the station is the lack of things to do -- I'm hoping to change that. Since mental health is my job, finding healthy activities and entertainment for people living here is part of it -- maybe your son can help me with that."

"That sounds like a good idea to me." Crusher crossed her arms across her chest and thought for a moment. "The information I have indicates that the prior CMO retired, and the captain and several other key staff have also departed. That there is an abnormal level of stress and depression here, even compared to the other stations along the Neutral Zone. Captain Picard did tell me this would be a difficult assignment, not because of situations external to the station, but because there are problems within."

"I've been talking to people since I arrived. There are a lot of bitter and angry people, and I've discovered that while the crew supposedly had a close relationship with the captain, they don't know where he is and haven't heard from him."

"A mystery." The doctor smiled. "Well, I suppose we'll have to meet and discuss that tomorrow, Ensign."

"Of course. If you need anything, let me know. I'm just three doors down from you." Deanna gave her a reassuring smile. "Please call me Deanna."

The doctor stared at her then for an odd moment. "Have we met before? There's just something in your -- "

"No. The captain mentioned that he knew your husband, and that you're a friend of his." Deanna left out the rest of what he'd said, especially the part about Jean-Luc having been in love with her at one point. Although it was on her mind -- meeting the doctor and seeing how beautiful she was, and how collected and calm, the reassurances she'd given herself started to feel less reassuring, that the past didn't matter and she hadn't sensed anything from Jean-Luc when he'd spoken about Beverly to give her any concern.

Crusher's reaction surprised her. The doctor actually took a step backward and appraised her with wide eyes. Then she smiled brilliantly. "He told you that."

"Is that... not okay?"

The doctor waved her hand as if shooing an insect away from her face. "It's okay. It explains -- Thanks for showing us to our quarters. I'll see you tomorrow, Deanna."

Deanna nodded and left, heading to her own quarters and going in. She had no more appointments, and while there were a couple of hours left in her shift, she could do what little work she had left in her own living room. And having the computer look up records for her could be done anywhere on the station. Dropping the book and padd she'd been carrying on the couch,  she asked the computer for the former medical officer's logs for about the time Captain Dunstan left the station. After not hearing most of a log entry, she stopped playback and curled up in a chair.

It took a while to talk herself out of feeling like a child. It was what it amounted to -- it was a curse sometimes, being a psychologist, but knowing her own malfunctions had been part of the process of becoming one. She knew she couldn't predict what he would do, or feel, and set aside the insecurity. It was hard to do. She couldn't keep herself, however, from checking in on his feelings. It was a habit now, one of the few things keeping her sane until they were able to spend more time together, but this time she took no comfort in it. 

It was clear that he was with the doctor now -- such a strange melange of regret, hurt, and happiness, with a curious amount of satisfaction. As she sat there observing there was a sudden and unexpected shift into anger and alarm. She drew her legs up into the chair and hugged her knees, something she only did when in extreme distress. Then she realized again she was still in uniform, and unfolded again. 

She thought about eating dinner but her stomach was now upset. She was completely uninterested in food, and so she paced. The sparsely-decorated living area was big enough to do that, and she wandered in an odd shape around the chair and the small sofa, the end table, the dining table. 

Unlike earlier in the day, time flew by. And then she realized it was past nineteen hundred, so she was left with a dilemma. He felt the same, upset and preoccupied with whatever he was thinking. And so she debated, but it did her no good. Feelings were not adequate reason to not follow through on a commitment. She went, taking the book with her. When she approached his door, which she had not done since arriving, it opened without delay.

Jean-Luc rose from the chair at the far end of the room -- it was obvious that the size of your quarters quadrupled when you got a promotion. He came to her as if he might be about to tell her bad news.

Deanna dropped her gaze, crossed her arms, and waited. When he didn't immediately start talking, she looked at his face, just an arm's reach from her, and continued to wait.

"What did you tell Beverly?"

It was not what she expected -- she stared at him now with a frown. "What?"

"You told her about us."

"I told her nothing. I hardly said anything beyond welcome, and 'here's your quarters.' What are you talking about?"

At that, he put a hand on his forehead and turned introspective. "There had to be something... that's all you told her?"

"Well, she asked if we'd met before, because I suppose there was something in my demeanor that said familiarity, or... I don't know. I told her that you'd told me that you knew her before, that you knew her husband. Why, what did she tell you?"

He fumed for a moment. "She asked me why I felt our relationship was a good idea, where I'd never allowed myself to do something like this before."

"And you were shocked, and confirmed that was true," she guessed. And he glared at her -- he wasn't angry at her, it simply hadn't occurred to him that it had been a guess. But he deflated, and turned away to pace restlessly away from her. She tossed the book on the end table and sat on the near end of the couch, to wait for him to process this.

"She told me -- " He paced around the end of the couch and came toward her, rounded the end table, stood for a moment looking at her. Then he dropped to sit next to her. "She asked me what I would have done, if my commanding officer had started to see an ensign."

Deanna closed her eyes and furiously fought the prickling in her eyes, until she was sure she could speak without crying. "So I should transfer elsewhere, or resign. Unless you are convinced that -- " Articulating it was too hard.

His hands closed over hers, where they rested in her lap. "It should tell you something, that I only thought in terms of how to make it all work, and never once thought about this from that perspective. I am convinced only that whatever choice we make, I have to keep us together."

She opened her eyes and ignored a few tears that escaped. "There are more than two options. I could find an assignment at a neighboring station, or one of the ships patrolling the area. I could quit Starfleet." 

"I could leave Starfleet as well," he said. But as he said it she knew that was not an option. 

"If I could find a posting on a ship...." His sad smile and melancholy at the thought answered it for her. That would be too much separation, and she knew it. She gripped his fingers, getting his full attention. "What do you think would be best for me?"

"It's been difficult for the past couple of weeks, hasn't it?"

"You know it has. I enjoy my work, but I don't have very many clients yet to distract me and I miss talking to you. I miss touching you. I lay there awake at night knowing you were doing the same. And the Starfleet piece of my job feels wrong to me."

It started a new level of concern for him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you want me to tell you my concerns, about the staff. I have issues with confidentiality then. There's a finite pool of people I work with, you can guess who I'm talking about when I make recommendations. I can't keep information completely to myself, they know that because I have to inform them fully about what confidentiality they can expect, so then they won't tell me everything. Which limits my ability to help. Since I work for Starfleet, not for them, I am obligated to Starfleet -- not my own ethical obligation as a psychologist or my client's best interests. It hasn't happened yet that I have significantly compromised my own ethics, but I can see that it will happen at some point. I'm also struggling with the suggestions you gave me."

"Which ones?"

"You said it was in my best interests to know the layout of the station, and how some things like the bulkhead access points and the Jeffries tubes and the atmospheric systems work -- I'm just not able to retain that information very well. It feels like I'm back at the Academy failing the 'basic engineering for stupid counselors' course."

He shifted to put his arm around her, and sighed in exasperation. "You're not stupid," he exclaimed.

"Neither are the medical staff, or the shop owners, or their staff. But none of us are engineers. I do better when I stand in front of something and someone shows me how it works, how it's put together. Watching on a screen and looking at diagrams and trying to read the material and apply it doesn't work as well. Maybe you should have the engineering staff have tutorials to educate the non-technical people on the station that way."

He started to chuckle at it. 

"What?"

"It's just funny, that we can start talking about our relationship, and end up talking about work. And you look at all of this from a different perspective than a Starfleet -- " He stopped and thought furiously for a few moments. "Yes," he exclaimed happily.

"Yes? I'd like to hear it too, if it's that good."

"I think Starfleet made a mistake," he said, hugging her close against his side.

"What mistake? You mean me?"

"No -- I think they should have counselors on ships, in Starfleet installations, but they shouldn't be Starfleet themselves. For the reasons you state, and because so many installations have civilian populations, now. Counselors should be given enough Academy coursework to understand officers and the issues they face, but shouldn't be required to do the entire curriculum. Because the conflict of interest you state is there, and because it would be advantageous to have a liaison -- someone separate from the chain of command, to mediate. I've been listening to Dunstan's logs, since we spoke this morning, after you mentioned the odd comments from staff. The first officer and the captain argued about which of them was responsible for the heavy damage and loss of life in the attacks made by the Grizmar and the senior staff fell into chaos -- it became personal, as they were all close, and while Starfleet investigated and found no fault there were negative feelings that continued until Dunstan retired. After he left, the first officer went on to take a posting aboard a starship, and the chief medical officer retired and went with him."

"A counselor would have been able to mediate the personal conflicts, which Starfleet couldn't directly do," she said. "And not being in the chain of command would have helped, because a counselor needs to be able to stand up to the captain when mediating a conflict involving him."

This was making him confident and happy about it. "I'm imagining some of the situations on my old ship -- it would have been easier to come to a resolution, had we had someone impartial who could have mediated."

"So what are you going to do, about this?"

Jean-Luc smiled and stared straight ahead, at the little Malthusian statue he'd put on a pedestal next to the bookcase. "I'm going to call admirals tomorrow and discuss it with them, of course. That based on your recommendations, the best way to prevent the situation that came about here, that ended several officers' careers, would be to put contracting psychologists in place."

He was so sure of himself in every way, radiating contentment, that it was difficult to doubt. But she did. "Surely it can't be that simple."

"There are times that it honestly is that simple, Deanna. It's a rare thing in Starfleet, but I've been around long enough that I can see how this will go. I was supposed to give feedback on having a counselor on my staff anyway. It's that new a program that they were expecting to make alterations."

Deanna reached up to put a finger in the collar of the uniform, gave it a yank, and watched the pip fly, tap across the end table, roll across the carpeted floor. "Does that mean I still get to stay with you tonight?"

"Well... there's still the question of whether you would be able to function as a counselor, on this station, as an independent contractor working with me."

"There are too many people on this station for a single counselor to handle. Even if only ten percent of the people aboard were to present for services at any given time, I would be overwhelmed completely. We need at least three counselors."

Jean-Luc nodded slowly. "So, in cases involving the captain, you wouldn't have to be involved." He turned slightly, to reach for the front of her uniform, his fingers joining hers in working at the fasteners. "I like the way you think."

"I would have told you that anyway. There's no way I would be able to work with everyone -- the number of people contacting me is increasing, as people become aware I'm on the station. Thirty per week would be a tolerable number, with some smaller number of people who come every other week. I can tell you there are a lot of depressed people -- far more than thirty. And while we're on the subject of recommendations, we need leisure activities for people -- the gymnasium isn't big enough and there are no other options. Not even a theater or a ball field, or playground. There are a dozen children attending school and they play ball in the shuttle bay, completely inappropriate and they would be in the way if there were an emergency."

"All right. Anything else?"

"I need you to tell me we can be together now," she said, climbing over him to settle astride his thighs, her hands flat on his chest. "I need to talk to you more than once every two weeks."

He worked her jacket open now that he had both hands free, and pulled her into a hug. A single sob worked its way out of her as she settled with her chin on his shoulder. 

"Yes," he whispered.

It was this that she needed -- she basked in the warmth from him, feeling whole again in the combination of the love they felt for each other. 

And then her stomach warbled loudly.

He tensed. "You haven't had anything to eat, have you?"

"I told you, I lose my appetite when I'm so stressed -- and I was -- earlier, when you were talking to Dr. Crusher, I really didn't know what to think."

He sighed heavily as he guided her off his lap, pointing her at the replicator on the wall not far from the door. "You may as well get enough for both of us. I didn't even think about having dinner, earlier. Do we need to talk about Beverly?"

"Only if you want to. I can tell I have nothing to worry about. You were reluctant to call her, after all."

"Wesley is much older, now. I haven't seen them in almost six years."

Deanna returned with a tray and let him pluck a sandwich of the plate before she put it down and took one herself. "A crime in itself -- he's your best friend's son. And he needs help -- such a sad boy. She's worried about him."

"Do you work with children?"

"I suppose I'll have to, if she asks me to," Deanna said, taking a bite of the roast beef on rye. "Do you want children, Jean-Luc?"

He froze, as if she'd just shocked him -- the sandwich had been in motion toward his mouth but hovered for a few seconds in front of it. "I... don't know," he stammered, and the turmoil of emotions with that confession told the rest of the tale.

She smiled, waved her sandwich dismissively. "Just another thing to talk about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the one where I admit that I think TPTB never bothered to talk to mental health professionals at all when they made stuff up. Or they did and ignored 'em.
> 
> You shouldn't play therapist for your boss or your friends, you people who write Star Trek episodes.


	5. Jean-Luc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.
> 
> Sister Mary Rose McGeady
> 
>  
> 
> Love lacked a dwelling, and made him her place;  
> And when in his fair parts she did abide,  
> She was lodged and newly deified.
> 
> William Shakespeare, A Lover's Complaint

"So where did you meet her?"

Jean-Luc sighed into his coffee. Meeting Beverly for a late cup at the cafe was an occasional thing. He hadn't talked to her in so many years that he felt awkward, trying to renew an old dormant friendship. Deanna had encouraged him to spend time with Beverly and Wesley, so far he managed several of these mid morning meetings with the doctor and thought that eventually he might spend time with the boy, after he was more comfortable with Beverly. They talked of random things from the past and Wesley, the boy who was too smart for his age group, and sometimes they talked about the station and the woes of a captain trying to sort out how to turn a bunch of depressed, angry officers into a team again.

He had expected an assault on his relationship with Deanna for weeks, and here it was. At least she was feeling less awkward, he told himself, bracing for the onslaught.

Beverly had an expectant, happy -- almost giddy, in fact -- expression on her face. Her blue eyes had a snap to them he hadn't seen since before Jack's death. She sipped her coffee and waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, a crinkle appeared above her nose, between her perfectly-defined brows.

"I'm not going to talk about this with you," he said quietly, refusing to indulge the impulse to look around. He knew the barista and four other customers were present, somewhere behind him.

"All I asked," she started, gesturing with her hand, reasoning with him.

"You asked where, and then it will be when, and what she was wearing, and pretty soon you'll be delving into what makes the relationship tick. I don't think I'll be comfortable with that."

"All I asked was where you met, Jean-Luc," she pleaded. "That's all."

He sighed again. "We met on Risa."

Beverly beamed at him. "When were you on Risa? I thought you've been on Malthusia, until you returned to Starfleet."

"Almost three years ago, about two weeks after the court martial."

Her enthusiasm dimmed significantly. "Oh."

"I'll let her tell you the rest of the story."

"All right," she said, smiling again. It was the kind of smile that warned him she was about to start teasing, again. "I like her. It's obvious that she adores you -- although I'm really struggling with the particulars of how in the galaxy you managed to attract such a lovely y -- and sweet, and -- "

"Hell," he blurted, barely avoiding throwing the coffee across the table at her by putting the mug down with a crack on the table.

Beverly bit her lower lip, probably attempting chastened, but the glint in her blue eyes ruined it. "If Jack were here -- "

"He'd be ten times worse than you're being, yes, I'm aware," he exclaimed, gesturing broadly with his right hand. "You are -- What the hell are you beaming about?"

"I got you to gesture with your hand at me," she said happily. "So can I help you plan the wedding?"

He put his hands in his lap and bowed his head. If he could only find a Jeffries tube.

"Jean-Luc. My god. Are you being this serious about this girl?"

Snatching at the mug, he missed and tried again, and angrily took a mouthful of coffee. "Stop calling her a girl."

"I'm sorry."

He risked a look. She appeared repentant, appropriately sober, and it was a risk, but he was in Starfleet, after all. "Do you think that this is some kind of joke? That it's easy, after being solitary all my life?"

She made a face that was two parts incredulous, one part eye roll. "I don't know, it sure looks easy. She loves you, you're in love with her to the point that you gave up a lifetime of staunch, unwavering resolve to never -- "

"I'm going to work." He stood and stalked for the exit, leaving the mug. He could replicate more when he got to his office.

Unfortunately, she chased him. Caught up, grabbed his arm. "Jean-Luc, I'm sorry," she exclaimed.

"For a few seconds, anyway."

She let go of his arm and walked with him. They were both in uniform -- the new one, that he didn't like, because it was far too skin-tight and difficult to get out of, although having someone to help him with that mollified him somewhat.  He nodded back to the occasional officer passing them going the other way. Things were getting easier with the staff in general, since he'd taken some of the counselor's advice. And stopped being so cranky, which was also her doing.

"It's just -- " Beverly wrestled with words for a moment. "This isn't like you. I thought, when I got here, that it was just -- a thing."

"And now after three months it is something else?" He slowed to a halt in front of the Andorian restaurant -- closed, at this hour, so less likely to be full of an audience. At least there were no Starfleet staff in evidence in the corridor, only a handful of civilians moving along -- there were few transports this far out and rarely any general public. Station visitors tended to be family of the staff or civilian contractors. "This thing will continue to be a thing, Beverly. I'm sorry you find that so worthy of mockery."

She crossed her arms, her shoulders shifting downward slightly, and bit her lower lip again. "I'm sorry," she said softly, finally with the sincerity he'd been waiting for.

"How is Wes settling in? Any improvement?"

A heavy sigh, at that. "He's less depressed I think. Finally. Deanna has him working with her on designing a new place for the younger kids to play. She's smart, you know, I tried to take him to a counselor while we were on Earth and he just hated it, wouldn't talk to her, just closed up on himself and his pain about his father. Deanna said that sometimes kids do better working things out, than talking about it."

He smiled at that. Deanna, since the changes that had taken three weeks for Command to debate about and finally agree with, had blossomed almost overnight. She had actually danced around his quarters kicking the uniform before throwing it gleefully down the recycle chute. The freedom from the burden of Starfleet regulations had released her to pursue whatever she pleased, and it pleased her to climb in bed with him every night. She spent the day with clients, with Wesley, with other people being herself -- finally, she appeared to be the woman he'd expected to find at graduation. Happy and confident, being a therapist and participating in a variety of projects around the station to go about setting in motion improvements that he had approved.

"Jean-Luc?"

"Sorry. Just thinking about something."

They reached the turbolift, and she rode with him up two levels. "You were thinking about her. I'm going to guess that you've not stopped thinking about her since you met her, from the way you're acting. It's why I was so curious, Jean-Luc."

"I know. I understand why it's difficult to believe, because... I still have difficulty believing it myself. It's been four months, and I'm not sure I completely understand it. It's just one of those things that I'm... I can't explain this to you."

"You said you'd met her on Risa almost three years ago."

"I did. It wasn't that kind of relationship -- we talked, and afterward we kept in touch, via subspace."

Beverly's brow wrinkled as she thought about that. "You talked over subspace until four months ago?"

"Can you not analyze this? Please."

"Four months ago and then you managed to have her here, on your space station?"

"Beverly, shouldn't you be heading the other direction, to sickbay?" he asked as the door opened.

"I will be shortly. Jean-Luc, please believe me when I say I wish you only the best. If you're happy with her, I'm happy for you. Just having a little difficulty grasping that it might be permanent. I mean, we all knew how much you loved the ladies, it just never...." She leaned out of the lift, her hand on the door keeping it open, as he stepped forward.

"It never occurred to you that I would change my mind, if I possibly found someone that made me want to stay."

She shrugged, leaning against the open door. "Well, no. Hence my surprise. The empathy is also an interesting wrinkle, not what I would expect you to be comfortable with."

"I'll see you later." He gave her a look, and turned to stalk down the short corridor toward the bridge.

He gave the staff in the bridge a tight smile, on his way through to the office. One of the ops staff handed him a padd on his way through. Reports, obviously. As he was provided every morning. Throwing himself in his chair, he started to slog through the repairs, parts requisitions, and other routine reports. When the chime went off, he called out to admit the person, and glanced up to find Deanna facing him with a sympathetic smile.

She had taken to wearing modest, tight-fitting dresses over matching tights, and wearing her hair loose over her shoulders with the sides clipped back out of the way. Today's dress was blue, with metallic highlights. "Is it all right, if I ask you if you're okay?"

"I'm sorry if I bothered you. Beverly was hounding me for personal information, about us. Wanted to know how we got together. I knew it was coming, tried to brace myself, but she kept at it. It's actually a good sign. She's settling in."

"I thought you were friends. Why didn't you just tell her?"

"Because -- because I don't just tell anyone anything. I'm not going to tell her I met you on a beach, while you were crying and wearing a wedding gown, and then you sat down and took it all off, and then we read books. Or that you spent three weeks with me, reading and discussing poetry, Shakespeare, archaeology or any other thing that came into our heads. I can't tell her because she jumps to conclusions."

"You could have told her some abridged version. Leave out the parts she would be so amused by, whatever those are."

"I did, and she already leaps to conclusions based on what little I said."

Deanna came around the desk and leaned against the edge, and gave him the sad smile that said she was channeling everything loud and clear. "I know you don't like to interrupt your day with personal issues. I just wanted to make sure that you're all right."

"I will be. Thank you."

Her smile broadened and turned into a pleased, happy one. She tilted her head a little, and showed a little of the shyness that made him smile. "Are we having dinner tonight?"

"I already told you -- "

"I know you leave it up to me, but I'd like to invite Beverly and her son this time." It wasn't a surprising request. She'd suggested it when the doctor had initially arrived, and he hadn't felt it was a good time. It had been awkward, for both he and Beverly, at first. Settling in had taken time.

He sighed. "As you wish."

Her shoulders sank. "You don't want to."

"Don't go by my feelings, Deanna. I was just put through Beverly's best attempt at giving me the Crusher treatment, I'm still a bit -- raw. I don't mind if they come."

"The Crusher treatment?"

 It was one of the gaps in their mutual knowledge and an intentional one. But he was starting to work at closing the gap, because he wanted her to stay and knew this was part of the process. "Jack was worse, with the teasing and sarcasm. We both were. I wasn't always an old curmudgeon."

He smiled at the sarcastic twitch of her lips. She crossed her arms and eyed him skeptically. "I suppose you have some sort of uniform, or ID card, to prove that you're an old curmudgeon?"

He tossed the padd at the desk, balanced his elbows on the arms of his chair with his hands dangling, and stared up at her. She was a little angrier than he expected. Shaking his head, he attempted a smile. "Compared to what I was before, yes, I am. And Beverly barely avoided calling me out on the age difference."

Deanna raised her head and glared at some point on the ceiling, chewing on her lip, and it wasn't cute as it was when Beverly did it. "What is it with humans and age? I had a woman tell me in her first session that I wasn't old enough to help her, that I could never understand -- it didn't matter to her that I'm an empath, or that I've been working with people of all ages for the past five years -- and the men, they all act like -- one of them actually rejected me when he found out I wasn't nineteen like he thought I was. What a bunch of superficial assholes you can be."

"Wait -- what man were you talking to, who rejected you?" he exclaimed, rising from his chair.

"That was at the Academy. He was the first man I agreed to go to dinner with. He was disappointed when I told him, but I hadn't quite understood how offputting it was, to be twenty-five."

"I have to wonder if the doctorate had something to do with it." Jean-Luc smirked at her. "Maybe he was eighteen and trying to find a just-old-enough woman?"

"What do you mean she called you out on the age difference?" The nostril flare nearly distracted him from an immediate response.

"What she was really commenting about was the difference between me then, and me now. Expressing disbelief. This is not at all what I would have done before, Deanna."

"Why?" she demanded. "You said you had regrets, about -- Jenice?"

"This is turning into a conversation we should have over wine. I'm sorry that I disrupted your day with my emotional upset. Beverly was bound to ask, I knew she would tease me, hopefully she got it out of her system."

Now she was looking at the floor. He hated these moments, when there was obviously something going on and he knew it was bad timing, but couldn't bring himself to scold her. It made him grateful all over again that she had resigned her commission.

"I always swore I would never marry. Never tie myself to anyone, because I would be in Starfleet -- I thought that it wasn't possible. That I would never be able to manage both. My relationship with Starfleet was my obsession, I drove myself into it with every ounce of my energy, and the friends that I had were all in Starfleet with me. The last time I spent any time with Beverly at all, we were both grieving my best friend. Jack was one of the first people that I started to connect to, on a different, less superficial level. Somehow he was able to understand me. He called me an old asshole, it was his way of telling me he cared."

"You swore you would never marry," she echoed. He knew better than to assume she hadn't heard the rest. She was just picking one thread out of the summary, for now.

"I also swore I would never allow any relationship to get serious enough that anyone would assume I would marry her, or even let her in my bed more than... oh, two or three times." He made a show of glancing around the room. "You know, if we're really going to keep talking about this, we should go find the wine."

She had a pursed-lips, thoughtful expression that he found almost as endearing as her sly smile, or the predatory smile she would have as she leaped into bed with him. "I shouldn't have interrupted, Captain, I'm sorry," she said at last.

"You know, I was surprised by what a relief it was for me, after you abandoned the uniform," he commented. "I didn't recognize how much tension I felt, having to stop thinking about you as I've known you, trying to treat you as an officer. And seeing you so happy has made all the difference for me."

Deanna uncrossed her arms, looked at him with _that expression_ \-- it was unsettling, here in his office. And she responded at once to his discomfort by softening, all fondness and happiness and no longer giving him a hungry look that led to remembering how she licked and kissed and touched him, sometimes.

"I'll go now," she murmured. "We can talk more later."

"As always. That's different, too, you know. I talk to you."

She turned back to look at him, startled. "You talk to other people."

"Not in the same way. Not about the same things. Remember when Beverly came aboard and knew immediately that we were together? It was because you knew about more than my professional life. I've told you more about me than I've told anyone."

Deanna considered that revelation seriously. It was one of the things he loved about her, that she would think before reacting. Then again, she could tell when he was serious, easily enough. "I knew you were a guarded person. I didn't realize you were actually secretive. Is it because of what happened with Philippa?"

"No, I've had some difficulties with people making jokes or inappropriate references while on duty, and become more and more careful over the years. It's as you said once, people all have different reasons for being in Starfleet, and different approaches to their work -- and I've always struggled with finding balance between the personal and the professional. I have to be careful too because apparently, I'm famous, and I don't appreciate that strange people approach me."

The annunciator sounded the call to return to work. He smiled regretfully at her, and she came to lean on his chest briefly. "Be careful," she murmured, her lips brushing his cheek, before turning away and going to the door. When it opened, she stepped around the officer coming in, and Jean-Luc noticed that Yarborough brushed against her in a manner that he found inappropriate, and unnecessary. The door was not narrow and neither of them were large people. The operations manager then stood in the open door and watched her departure through the bridge.

"Did you need something, Mr. Yarborough?" Jean-Luc snapped.

"Sir," the man yelped, sidling the rest of the way in. "Captain DeSoto is here to see you."

He had known the _Hood_ would be there, and that the commanding officer was likely to request a meeting -- not that it would be about anything official. Starship captains all felt a kinship with each other, and unofficial briefings were status quo. He also knew DeSoto, not well, but they had worked together in the past.

"Send him in, then. Thank you. And do not ogle while on duty, Mr. Yarborough -- I suggest that you consider standing away from the door rather than crowding other people."

It was enough of a scolding to put red in the second officer's cheeks, and the odious little man rapped out a 'yes sir' and scurried from the room. Jean-Luc decided that replacing the second officer should be more of a priority. First, however, he needed a first officer. It was the last open position to fill, but a critical one, so he was taking his time reviewing a number of candidates and talking to them over subspace.

The next time the door opened was DeSoto, and surprisingly a young lieutenant-commander -- a tall, thin fellow with short brown hair and a baby face. "Jean-Luc," DeSoto exclaimed, coming to the end of the desk holding out a hand. "How are you?"

"Fine, fine, Robert, how have you been?" They shook hands, and Jean-Luc gestured at the handful of chairs on the other side of the desk. "Who is this?"

"Lieutenant-Commander William Riker, at your service," the other man exclaimed, holding out a hand.

"My first officer," DeSoto explained. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Will."

Deanna's warning now made sense. He gave the man's hand a brief shake and moved away. "Have a seat. Would you care for anything?"

Jean-Luc took the time at the replicator to compose himself and determine that nothing would drag his feelings out, no matter what. He brought the coffee back to his desk, let the other two add cream and sugar as they pleased while taking his black. "Thank you for bringing my new engineer, all this way," he exclaimed, sitting down. Immediately he felt the uniform shift and twist a little around his ribs -- he ignored the urge to adjust it and sipped his coffee.

"Not a problem. We're bound for the next station after this, to drop off some transfers and pick up a few more. All while establishing a 'presence,' of course," Robert exclaimed with a grin. "Did I just see a Betazoid leaving the bridge?"

"Dr. Troi is the station's counselor. She's part of the new program -- her assistance in restoring functional staff on this station has been invaluable."

"Doctor?" Riker exclaimed. When Jean-Luc stared at him, he went on. "I know her -- she was taking classes at the Academy. I thought she was an ensign."

"Starfleet isn't for everyone, as we all know," Jean-Luc said diffidently. He tried not to be irritated by the man's curiosity, turned to the other captain with a friendly smile. "Have you been assigned a counselor yet?"

"I'm not certain how I feel about that yet. Having an officer prying into my secrets and diagnosing me."

"Well, that's changed as well. It became apparent quickly that having someone in the chain of command working with senior staff could become a conflict of interest. So they are revamping the program -- using contractors instead of putting psychologists through the Academy. Which is why Dr. Troi is not in uniform."

DeSoto eyed him with a raised eyebrow. "So you're in therapy?"

"Robert," Jean-Luc scolded with a grin. "Even a contracting civilian reports to the station commander."

"Well, I didn't mean to imply you needed therapy," Robert said with a mercenary grin. "So they didn't put you on a ship again -- their loss."

"Actually, I've been informed that there will be a few new models out, in a few years. I was intrigued by the idea of a ten year mission, exploring the far reaches of the galaxy, over an Oberth class assigned to a sector near Feringinar. This appeared to be a decent interim challenge -- putting together a star base that's fallen apart."

"As it happens, that comes to the reason I've brought along Will. He's expressed an interest in working with you."

Jean-Luc raised his eyebrows at that. "So interested that he's willing to leave a starship to serve on a remote starbase?"

The young man's jaw jutted visibly at that. "Sir, it isn't -- "

Jean-Luc held up a hand. "Well, it so happens that I am talking to three other candidates today, so it seems prudent to take advantage of the opportunity to speak to you. Robert, if you wouldn't mind stepping out for a few minutes, so I can speak to Mr. Riker? We can meet afterward."

"I'll take a look around, be back in a bit." DeSoto rose and took his coffee with him from the room.

To his credit, Mr. Riker sat upright and met Jean-Luc's eyes with a confident, almost arrogant demeanor.

"So tell me what draws you to request such a posting, Mr. Riker?"

"As the captain said, I would appreciate an opportunity to serve with you, sir. Especially if as you say you will be taking command of a vessel that will be on a long tour of duty."

Jean-Luc thought about being twenty-seven, and smiled in amusement. "You want to sign up to be on an extended tour of duty, as a first officer, instead of promoting -- isn't it the usual goal to be captain before you're thirty, like Kirk?"

"As you alluded to yourself, sir, goals can change. The longer I'm in service, the more I realize that there's more to life than ambition."

"Fair enough. But I have to question whether your intelligence or your memory might be suspect."

It was Riker's turn to act surprised; he tilted his head and shook it a little as if confused. "Sir?"

"I believe we spoke just four months ago, when you were attempting to reach Dr. Troi and she came to me with a complaint that you wouldn't leave her alone. Do you expect me to assume that's not a factor in this decision?"

Riker's head jerked up slightly. "I don't intend to bother her, sir. That's not my style."

"Why did she have to bring me into her personal business, if it's not your style?" He leaned back and succumbed to the urge to give the uniform a sharp yank, then settled with his hands folded over his navel, gazing at the younger man steadily.

Riker dropped his gaze and adopted a resigned expression, thought for a moment, and then regrouped. "Captain, I don't know what she told you, but there are two sides to every story. I don't force anyone to do anything."

"All right. You have an excellent record, certainly, and Robert wouldn't have hired a slouch. So tell me what would convince me you actually want to work for me on a near-derelict space station on the Neutral Zone instead of continue along a stellar career trajectory."

Riker crossed his arms. "What convinced you to take this assignment?"

"I know what a Galaxy class starship looks like." The damned uniform was starting to creep again. He ignored it. "This station is actually critical to the defense of the Federation, and since no one else wanted the job I prioritized. My plan is to find a first officer who will promote into command of this starbase, when I leave. Does that suit your needs?"

"Sir, if it would ease your concerns, let me talk to De -- to Dr. Troi. I can reassure her that I intend to keep things professional between us."

Jean-Luc smiled at that. "I believe it would be most expedient if I am candid, for a moment. You say that you've come here to serve under my command, as if that were some honor you seek -- you have a fine posting under DeSoto already, so I find that an unlikely motivation. You have the appearance of a man with regrets. I am no stranger to regret -- if there were commendations for regrets, I would have a very impressive dress uniform by now. You are, perhaps, under the impression that being posted here in close proximity to someone you once had a relationship with might give you another opportunity to rewrite history -- I think that, if you do speak to her, you should ask her openly what she thinks about that possibility, and you should accept her answer as she gives it."

Riker stared at him as if he had suggested taking over the Federation.

"Which is not to say I'm taking you on," Jean-Luc continued. "Because I still have other officers on my list to interview, and I won't make that decision for a day or two. I feel that I should include Dr. Troi in the choice as well, because her input has been invaluable in the rest of my efforts to put together a staff that works well together. You are overqualified for this posting, in my estimation, so the deciding factor will be whether she believes you mesh well with the rest of our staff -- especially considering that anyone we choose will eventually be offered command of this station. So in short, you have two reasons to speak to her, and if you choose to do so her office is on deck six near sickbay. Now -- if you will excuse me, I have some reminiscing to do with an old friend."

Riker sat in stunned thought -- then realized the dismissal and popped upright out of the chair. "Thank you, sir."

A minute after he vanished out the door at a swift clip, DeSoto returned. "How'd it go?" Robert sprawled in the chair Riker had abandoned, now sans coffee cup.

Jean-Luc opened a desk drawer and brought out the shot glasses and whiskey he kept for such occasions. "Do you know why your first officer is trying to stall his career?"

"It has to do with a woman. He's not a shy boy about it," Robert said. He picked up the glass offered, held it up in tandem with Jean-Luc, and they knocked the first one back. Robert poured the second round, but settled back lazily and left it on the edge of the desk. "Are you taking him on?"

"Have you ever considered compromising your career, for a woman?"

Robert snorted and rolled his dark eyes. "Have you ever met anyone in Starfleet who hasn't?"

"Well, yes, some people are more attracted to men than women."

Robert laughed with him, and sipped his whiskey. "Or other genders, I suppose. You haven't answered me, Jean-Luc."

"I need a good first officer who works well with people, and I suppose he does that well enough. But I think he's not the right man for the job. There's far more adventure and opportunity in starship duty."

"Starfleet gives us some latitude for personal choice, though, and I can't blame him for thinking he might be able to have the best of both worlds." Robert turned introspective for a bit, swirling the pale liquid in his glass.

"She would have to consent to it, you know."

Robert blinked, startled enough to halt the progress of the glass toward his lips. "Why would he ask for this if she hadn't already?"

"Hubris?"

"Well, he is cocky as hell -- and frankly, I found it a little surprising that he would commit to anyone. He has a fine time being friends with benefits with a variety of the female crew."

Jean-Luc raised an eyebrow, and hoped the anger didn't show in his face. "Would you be sorry to see him go?"

"Actually, yes. He isn't irresponsible about relationships with the crew, I don't mean to make it sound bad -- he's handled himself with discretion and tact. He's a good exec, not afraid to speak his mind and walk the line between loyalty and principles."

"I don't think you'll lose him any time soon. The woman in question will have the final say in the matter. She's assessing new staff and making recommendations, which I've been taking -- and I also happen to know she's met someone, since Mr. Riker cancelled their wedding, the day of, three years ago."

Robert clearly hadn't known about that -- he stared at Jean-Luc with a shocked expression. "Wedding? He walked out on her? Forget cocky, this approaches delusional."

"Yes, well, he wouldn't be the first man in the galaxy to believe in his incredible ability to persuade women to do his bidding, would he?" Jean-Luc said wryly, tipping the last of his whiskey down and reaching for the bottle. "Now, tell me about this confrontation you had a couple of months back with the Ferengi?"

 

\---------------------

 

Jean-Luc pulled the cork from the wine bottle, and poured himself a glass. The zinfandel was likely to be more to Deanna's tastes, he thought, sniffing it. He looked up when the door slid open, and smiled, holding out the glass. 

"It's as though you read my mind," Deanna said, giving him a tired smile as she came to take it from him. 

"Are you ready for dinner?"

"Beverly's going to be a little late. There was a last minute crisis in sickbay, something about a broken wrist." She followed him to the couch to sit down. "The _Hood_  departed an hour ago."

"Good. That should be a relief."

She gazed at him over the rim of the glass as she sipped. A nod told him he'd guessed correctly, and she approved of the wine. "Were you nervous, sending Will to talk to me?"

The uniform shifted again, slithering to the left, and he sighed, shifted forward, and reached up to wrestle with the shirt. "Yes. However, if my favorite things about you are your independence and intelligence, it would be hypocritical of me to deny you every opportunity to exercise them."

Her eyes glittered happily at that. "Those aren't your favorite things about me."

"They are, when you are wearing clothing." He stood up and peeled the shirt over his head. "I'm going to put something else on."

"Don't put yourself out on my account," she commented, watching him head into his bedroom. 

When he returned wearing a blue sweater he knew she favored, she had been joined by Beverly, and was pouring their guest a glass of wine. "Where is Wesley?" he asked, coming to sit with them at the table. 

"He didn't want to come. I left him doing homework," Beverly said, sipping. "This is good, thank you."

"I'm sorry it took so long to invite you for dinner," Jean-Luc said. He accepted a glass from Deanna and raised it slightly. "To good friends."

"Here, here," Beverly said, doing the same and bringing the wine to her lips. After a sip she continued. "But don't think you'll get off easy because you're being sweet."

Deanna, surprisingly, said nothing. She had raised her glass, but appeared to be thinking and not paying attention.

"Perhaps I could get off easy because Deanna doesn't have the energy to play referee," he said.

"Is something wrong?" Beverly asked at once. It was clear that the two were becoming good friends, as if he hadn't noticed that already. 

"Not at all. More a matter of everything being stressful, but it turned out for the better. I finally got the last word in with my ex fiancé."

"Okay," Beverly said tentatively, frowning. 

Deanna gave him a look -- she reached across the short distance between their chairs, to take his hand. It didn't escape Beverly's notice; she smiled, without the gleeful teasing he expected, and turned back to the matter at hand expectantly. 

"The first officer of the _Hood_  -- his name is Will," Deanna said.

"Is that -- was he leaving your office earlier?" Beverly exclaimed. "A distraught young man nearly ran into me outside sickbay. He was coming from your direction."

"That was probably him. He was trying to convince me that he was willing to give up his dream of being a starship captain, beating Kirk's record, to be here -- I told him I wasn't interested in being with him again, any more than I was the last dozen times he hinted at it, or talked around it, or asked me to reconsider."

"He sounds stubborn." Beverly was eyeing Jean-Luc with a smirk. 

Deanna drank wine, and her eyes grew distant. "He was like a lot of people, I suppose. Happy to make allowances and compromise, as long as he was getting his way. The problems started when we were planning the wedding."

"Wedding," Beverly echoed. "How long ago was this?"

"Almost three years, now," Deanna said. She started to look melancholic. "Hard to believe -- we opted to go to Risa. Betazed or Earth would have upset someone -- Mother was lobbying for home, of course, and having it the traditional Betazoid way would have led to some embarrassment for Will's guests. So we pulled out all the stops -- Mother was more than happy to fund it, once we angled our pitch for Risa to appeal to her love of a good party, and we had two hundred fifty people attending. Except we were all waiting there on the patio at the resort and Will never came. Finally the resort manager brought me the news, that message that said he had been promoted and had to report for duty and would not be able to come, cancel the wedding."

Beverly started to gape at the word 'cancel.' She scowled, completely scandalized, and touched Deanna's arm. 

"It's all right," Deanna said with a smile. "I'm glad it happened. It saved me -- if I had been less involved, I might have analyzed the way he was behaving and canceled it sooner, myself. But I was in love, and completely convinced he was invested in what was best for both of us. He would bicker about things sometimes that I felt were petty -- I wanted flowers, particular kinds in specific colors, and he would want different colors. So I let him change the color scheme we'd chosen. I wanted to wear something simple and elegant, he had a very... different idea."

"Who chose the one you had?" Jean-Luc asked -- that prompted an alarmed look from Beverly, and he wanted to kick himself for giving her ammunition. 

"I was so frustrated with everyone at that point that I told the clerk in the shop we were in to choose one for me. Just to make things fair and equal." She drank more wine, and sighed, half-closing her eyes. "He would always go back to the story he was telling himself, that as long as we loved each other everything would work out. Obviously not true. Loving each other only starts things -- the harder part for him was balancing his sense of duty to Starfleet with what he wanted to do with me."

"He obligated himself," Jean-Luc exclaimed, thinking about what DeSoto had said about Will's behavior. "He was supposed to find the balance between duty to Starfleet and his duty to you, which he created when you committed yourselves to one another. And if he has been telling you over the years that he intended to work that out, while canceling the wedding and being -- well."

"You're going to tell me there were women," Deanna said tiredly. "I asked him if he had been with others, all the time he's been pretending we're still a possibility. He was honest, said none of that meant anything -- said he'd expected me to do the same. I did not tell him about you, just that I focused on my classes and my friends. He wouldn't understand and he would be critical of my choices -- he wouldn't simply question, or challenge them, he would push me. Which wasn't obvious to me, until I met you. I should have listened to you."

"You had good intentions. You always do."

"But he only agreed with me to be friends, to keep the door open. I didn't see that because I wanted my version to be true. So I ignored hints to the contrary, which he provided, I simply chose to believe otherwise." She smiled then. "And I was distracted, and spending most of my time thinking about you."

Beverly sat very still, listening, and Jean-Luc realized why when he happened to glance at her -- they were talking as they usually did, which had not been his habit until he'd met Deanna. He stared across the table, and Beverly noticed and smiled at him.

"I'll be back in a minute," Deanna said, rising from her chair. She moved around the couch toward the bedroom door. Probably heading for the bathroom.

Beverly watched her go, then reached for the wine bottle to tip what was left into her glass. "Is there any more?"

"Yes, I have another bottle of the same. I'll open it unless you're interested in chardonnay?"

"I liked the red. Thanks."

He went about opening the next bottle. "Would you like an appetizer as well? We should probably start dinner, if we're going to drink more."

"Jean-Luc, I'm sorry that I teased you, earlier."

He looked up to find her crying, as she watched him wield the corkscrew. "Beverly?"

"I'm fine. And you're not the same -- not that I believed you were, I saw that almost the second I walked into your office to report for duty, but it's more than just -- you're letting yourself trust someone that much, that you -- Jack would like her."

He smiled sadly, at that. It was the first time she'd mentioned him since coming aboard the station. "I think so. I also think she would like him... I wish he were here."

Beverly rose and came around the table, put her glass next to his, and watched him pour more wine. "I missed you too."

He raised his gaze as he set the bottle aside, toward the middle of the table. "I'm sorry that I did not communicate with you, all this time." He winced a little. "Deanna actually scolded me about that."

"I know you don't like it, but -- " Beverly stepped in and hugged him. He put an arm around her, tried not to be too stiff about it. When the bedroom door opened she leaped backward as if she'd been caught.

Deanna came back with a smile. She'd changed into the green silk he'd bought for her in Capri, which looked splendid on her, especially now that she wasn't underweight. "You opened another bottle."

"Yes. Here you are." He passed her refilled glass and gestured at the couch. "We should make ourselves more comfortable."

"I'm glad you're finally getting around to that," Deanna commented, leading the way with a whisper of silk against her legs. 

"She's an empath, Beverly. I don't have to do anything for her to be able to tell what I'm up to," he exclaimed, following his favorite civilian to sit with her, draping an arm across her shoulders. 

Beverly took the chair opposite them, smiling and raising her glass to them. "To friends -- real ones, old and new."

"Yes," Deanna said, with brilliant sparkling eyes and his favorite of her smiles -- the transcendently happy one, that said joy. Jean-Luc raised his glass and drank, holding her tightly in his left arm, and smiled across at Beverly. 

Perhaps a space station was not his ideal placement. Perhaps he had learned it later in life that Will Riker -- but it was true, that there was far more to life than Starfleet and duty, and he was quite satisfied to have found it at all, as he had come so close to missing it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The slight manipulation of ages and when canon events (many of them are) occur is based on the fact that a doctorate is not an easy thing to acquire, and I seriously doubt getting one while attending the Academy would be possible. So Deanna is older than the average kid at the Academy, which is canon as Will is a mere year older yet he is a lieutenant when he is on Betazed but she is a psychology student.


	6. Will Riker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are may when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
> 
> William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, sc. 1

Will Riker strode down the corridor from the transporter room, and into a turbolift. This was the first new ship he'd ever been on, and everything was bright and clean. And the upgrades -- the computer was more advanced, all voice interface and fast. He'd been staring at specifications from the moment he'd learned he was being considered.

He came out on the bridge, and everyone came to attention -- but they were techs, not the bridge crew, everyone in coveralls. The main viewer was dark, as were the consoles around the bridge. The _Enterprise_  was, after all, still in dry dock at McKinley. With a curt nod he headed for the ready room.

He went in slow as the door opened, with measured steps, feeling like he was approaching a dragon in its den. He came to attention behind two chairs, facing the desk. "Sir. Commander William T. Riker, reporting for duty."

"At ease," Picard said, a subdued, controlled smile in place as he rose and leaned across the desk, proffering a hand. They shook firmly, and Will took a seat in tandem with his new commanding officer.

"May I be candid, sir?"

"Always. I expect it." Picard folded his hands on his desk and gazed at him expectantly.

"I was surprised that you even considered me. I think she must have told you the entire story, by now. And I wouldn't expect you to tolerate an officer whose behavior you once found suspect."

Picard's smile grew, and he nodded slowly. "I suppose this is a conversation that must be had, if we're to work together closely for ten years. Clearing the air, so to speak."

Will looked away, but forced himself to turn back -- it was a ridiculous thing, feeling this awkward with another officer. He was determined to work through it. The past was gone, why should it influence the present so much? "I'm just surprised -- no need to rehash old news. I'm very much looking forward to serving with you, sir. I hope that I will live up to your expectations."

"It's important to me that my senior staff work as a team without interference of personal matters. I have it on good authority that you have been an excellent first officer. Robert gave you high marks across the board, so I'm anticipating we will have no issues. I should let you know that we will have in addition to Starfleet personnel a civilian population, including children -- how do you feel about that?"

"Children?" Will repeated, more surprised by Picard's manner than the conversation itself. The last encounter with the captain had been formal and stiff -- the man had been inscrutable. This version of Picard seemed genial and friendly by comparison -- still formal, but the smiles, subdued as they were, were starting to make him feel awkward.

"It's going to be a trend, in Starfleet, I suspect. Longer missions will separate families for too long - the compromise is to allow officers to bring them along, especially in cases where the other parent is also an officer. Have you any family, Mr. Riker?"

"Not at this time, no." He started to scowl -- this was the man who had prevented that possibility. Not directly, he knew. Not because he had forced Deanna to do anything, or talked her into anything -- that had been made quite clear to him when Deanna had contacted him to inform him of 'how things were.' But relationships were things that changed, or grew over time, and he knew Deanna -- he knew how much she'd loved him. He knew, when she had continued to stay in contact, that she still cared about him.

The problem had been a matter of proximity. That this man had blocked him from the attempt to mend a relationship he deeply regretted damaging couldn't stand in the way of a plumb position that would cement his career. There was a great deal he could learn, from a captain like Picard. But it rankled that Picard was forcing the conversation to this, in the face of the fact that she had married Picard and thus blocked completely any chance of wooing her back into his arms.

"Mr. Riker, do you have an issue with having families on board?" He was misinterpreting Will's ire, but that was all right.

"No, sir, I do not." He considered, and decided that Picard was right. Perhaps they should clear the air before this became something he would resent. "Did Deanna tell you that she contacted me?"

"Well, yes, in fact she did. She wanted to be certain there were no undue surprises, she said. And she informed me that providing you an opportunity to discuss our previous encounter would allow you the opportunity to back out, in the event we discover one or both of us is unable to set aside any lingering resentment."

Will smirked at that. "You hold her opinions in high esteem, obviously."

Picard's expression went to fondness and pride, now. "You know, I was dubious when I initially heard about the counseling program. I've always resisted the suggestion of therapy, and never considered such a thing useful. But watching the changes it makes in people's lives made me reconsider. Over the past five years I watched her work magic -- when we left that starbase, the crew was functioning like a well-oiled machine, and morale was good. She made changes, added recreational facilities, and suggested more, that led to the development of our holodecks -- have you seen a holodeck, Mr. Riker?"

"No, I haven't -- I hear they're amazing."

Picard sprang up from the chair. "Come along, then. We have two of them operational."

Will followed the captain out and into the turbolift -- something he'd done countless times, on previous starships, and yet this was different. Picard stood at attention, arms behind his back, and exuded contentment. The lift sailed along at a rapid clip, toward deck eleven. "There are endless possibilities in life," Picard commented. "I was so sure of myself, at sixteen. So set in my ideology. Great men make great sacrifices, and it wasn't even a sacrifice -- why would I ever want to be tied to anyone? The galaxy is full of people. People are such a great part of the adventure. Commitments are limitations. Relationships are distractions."

"Sounds familiar enough." It wasn't as though commitment avoidance wasn't common, in those aspiring to command. "What changed your mind?"

He glanced at the captain as he asked -- Picard's eyes closed, and the subdued smile returned. The lift halted, shuddering almost imperceptibly, and he strode forward.

Will followed him down the corridor and through large double doors -- onto a yellow-on-black grid. When the doors closed, Picard said, "Computer, load program Risa."

And just like that, they were on a beach on Risa. There were even people on the beach. Clouds, in the sky. Will was stunned, and turned in a complete circuit, staring.

"Wow," he exclaimed at last.

"Revolutionizes recreational facilities on starships, doesn't it? A far cry from pool tables in a cargo bay. And the computer will store your preferences, under your own account, so there may be a hundred programs based on Risa but each is individualized to the person." Picard crossed his arms and appeared to be enjoying the beach -- he looked completely out of place in the uniform. "This is the beach near the resort. I was over there, trying to read."

Will did another double-take, and turned to stare at Picard.

"I had just been court-martialed. Exonerated, but what a miserable process. I could not decide whether to stay in Starfleet. I had such mixed feelings, I was so frustrated and disillusioned listening to my own crew on the stand -- there were different versions of the same event, it was shocking to me, that there were so many ways it could be interpreted. In the end all was well enough. I took a leave of absence. I came here to not think about anything at all, for a while, obtain my own perspective."

"You met her here," Will said. "After the wedding was canceled."

"I met a new friend, who didn't look at me through any of the usual filters. Who could talk about things with an objective stance. She knew who I was, and she didn't care. We didn't talk about Starfleet, or relationships, or anything going on in our lives -- at least not at first. We talked about books. Poetry. The psychology of trauma. She was writing this paper. And then she went to Earth, and I went to participate in a dig, on an extended leave of absence. She would tell me about the work she was doing, but we still talked about other things. She didn't tell me she was having all the difficulties, with men harassing her, with the cross training coursework -- she didn't tell me she had broken her leg. She said nothing about so many things, asked endless questions, and by the time I arrived to see her graduation I was certain the friendship would be ending shortly, when she saw me face to face and sensed how I felt about her."

"Why are you telling me this?" Will exclaimed.

Picard turned from gazing down the beach at the waves to give him a sober look. "To make a point."

"She already told me most of this."

"Perhaps. Did she tell you that she never made real friends at the Academy? She never fit in there. She hated that she couldn't be friendly without being misunderstood. The women who were not attracted to her were threatened by her. The people she did befriend, she was less interested in continuing the friendships with them due to a mismatch in interests -- she had literally nothing in common with anyone. She couldn't afford to go out to eat or get drunk on a regular basis, and it's not enjoyable to sit around watching other people have fun. No one was interested in extracurricular reading, and when she struggled in a class and fell behind, she felt singled out if there were group activities -- and we know how many group projects and team efforts we had, as cadets."

"She never said a word to me about any of it," Will said, feeling frustrated -- he wasn't certain who to be angry at but tried to set it aside.

"Because she wanted to succeed on her own merits." Picard turned away and stared out to sea, arms crossed again.

Will sighed, remembering the woman he'd known on Betazed whether he wanted to or not. "She was always stubborn. Probably still is."

Picard harumphed softly and stared down at the sand.

"What?"

"One of the things we've discussed is how she is sometimes frustrated by the limitations of Standard, in expressing herself verbally. Sometimes I feel the same. Stubborn is an oversimplification. It has a negative implication, as if she should have been otherwise."

"So what would you call it?"

"Determined? Focused on self improvement? Wanting to prove to herself that she could exist apart from a relationship in which she enmeshed herself emotionally, to the point that she failed to see warning signs that suggested the relationship was flawed?"

Will took a moment to inhale slowly, exhale, and think about what was being said. "You're probably right. I suppose part of it was my fault, I did encourage her to be more independent."

Picard smiled again, but it was only somewhat amused. "That was not the wording she said that you used."

"She must have referred to an argument we had. I told her she was used to being a princess, and always using her empathy to get the upper hand."

Now Picard stared at him soberly with a raised eyebrow. 

"I was angry. We both were -- we say things we don't mean when we're angry," Will exclaimed hotly. "I still don't understand why we're discussing this, it's completely outside the context of Starfleet."

"It is within the context of this vessel," Picard said. "This is a community. We will be operating side by side for years. Most of us have the benefit of never having known anything about each other, and will be starting new relationships with each other. Some of us do not. I am concerned that you may be holding on to old paradigms, about her and about me."

"You have a strange way of making friends."

"I do indeed. Mr. Riker, you asked me what changed my mind, about relationships and Starfleet. In short -- I finally came to the conclusion that such a choice was an oversimplification. That, at sixteen, I was not yet able to make a good decision regarding what I should be doing at thirty, or fifty. I should not have tried to make that decision at all. Since then I have learned people are complex, and that I am as capable of maintaining relationships as anyone. It was simply a matter of how much change I was willing to undergo in order to make that possible. Because, all rationalization aside, the bottom line was that my choice to avoid relationships was rooted in fear -- I believed that I would fail, either in my career or in my relationships. I started to think instead in terms of what kind of relationship would work for me."

"You started to think about relationships analytically? Analyzing how I feel about someone doesn't sound much like a relationship."

Picard smirked at that. "I am going to suggest to you that you consider how your expectations, including the ones you are not aware of, may have shaped the course of yours. Because how we think about something has everything to do with how we feel about it. I think that you are an excellent officer. I think you may be a good friend. Because regardless of the things that went wrong between you, Deanna does have good judgment, and you could not have appealed to her if you were not intelligent and strong-willed, and smart."

Will chuckled and almost rolled his eyes. "You're as bad as she is. She could talk your ears off, about relationship dynamics and so on."

"You make it sound as though you don't find it important to listen to her."

"One of the things I've always liked -- she's very intelligent. I think sometimes that she simply overthinks things that are straightforward."

Picard raised an eyebrow, again, and continued to smirk, but the holodeck door sighed open and a tiny person charged into the room, hit the sand, and did a face plant on the beach. The captain was in motion at once -- he plucked the toddler out of the sand and was kneeling to brush sand off its face, when a teenager hurried in. 

"I'm sorry, she gets away from me every time a turbolift opens. Is she all right?" The boy glanced at Will and smiled. "Hi."

Picard stood up, with the child in his arms. "This is Commander Riker, our new first officer. Wesley Crusher -- he's our chief medical officer's son."

"And a lame babysitter," Wesley added. "I can take her to your quarters, sir. She's figured out how to tell the computer where to go, and this is her favorite place. Sorry we interrupted."

"I'll take her for the rest of the day, Wes. You've been babysitting enough for the week, and I'm done with the meetings I had today."

The boy grinned. "Thanks. I have a lot of trig to finish." He turned to leave the holodeck.

Will stared at the child -- a little girl, leaning against Picard's shoulder with her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, staring at him with wide black eyes. She had a thick cap of reddish-brown curls. An ache started in his chest -- this could have been his child.

"Evelyn is two and a half," Picard said. 

"She's a beautiful child." Perhaps he said it with a little too much wistfulness. It got him a sharp look. But the captain strolled toward the exit, and Will trailed along in his wake.

"I'm not holding any grudges, sir," Will said as they went down the corridor. "I won't have any difficulties working with Deanna. I know she's the ship's counselor, and outside the chain of command. I understand my responsibilities will at times require me to work closely with her."

"Particularly for performance reviews. And diplomatic endeavors -- she will be joining away teams when diplomatic matters are afoot. She will also be maintaining a close relationship with the school children; Starfleet is requesting data regarding the impact of ship life on children, and she will be collecting that data. Her work with the crew as a therapist will of course be entirely confidential, unless she is specifically asked to assess someone to determine fitness for duty."

"Won't that be a conflict if she's supposed to assess you?"

Picard patted Evelyn's back gently as he entered the lift. The little girl appeared to be falling asleep draped across her father's chest, seated on his arm. "With more than a thousand people aboard, we will have at least two other counselors, and request another if more help is needed."

Will followed him all the way into his quarters, which were spacious indeed -- the sloping viewports overhead showed part of the external frame that still surrounded the ship, while work on the outer hull was completed. They were a week from launch and still boarding crew. He watched Picard cross the room to put Evelyn in a playpen, pull a blanket over her, and leave her slumbering with her thumb in her mouth to head for the replicator.

He was shocked when Picard handed him a tumbler of liquor. "It's synthehol, but until the rest of my things arrive, it will do."

Will sat in one of the chairs -- luxurious yet utilitarian -- and Picard settled on the long sofa, at a right angle to the chair. "I can see they weren't exaggerating about the Galaxy class," Will commented.

"It's one thing to look at schematics, another to be here. I've found that the best place to listen to Bach is the main shuttle bay."

Before he could ask who Bach was, or what it was, the door opened again, and Deanna arrived. She wasn't surprised to see him -- of course, you never surprised someone who sensed people she knew across half a star system -- but he was thoroughly taken aback by her appearance. She wore a flowing, multi-layered dress in several shades of teal, and her hair was quite long -- it fell in wavy torrents to her knees, and that while she had gathered it to the crown of her head in one of those beaded bands favored by Betazoid ladies. It appeared that there would be a sibling for Evelyn shortly.

"Hello, Will. It's good to see you." She glided over to sit beside her husband, and while she didn't kiss him she did lean in close, almost cheek to cheek with him, before settling back to face their guest.

"Likewise. I'm glad to see you're doing so well -- starting the family you always said you wanted to have. How's your mother?"

"Mother is fine -- she'll be at the launch ceremony, in fact. We'll take her with us as far as starbase four, where she'll catch a transport home." Deanna, in combination with Picard, fairly radiated happiness. She smiled serenely at Will and her gaze made him vaguely uncomfortable. He'd been on Betazed for more than a year -- having those dark eyes focus on him still felt unsettling.

"I was just discussing a few things with the captain," Will said, to have something to say. "Working with you should be fun."

Her smile softened, and her eyes laughed. He'd forgotten how she could radiate happiness that way, how beautiful she was, and for a moment it took him back in time -- but he wasn't twenty-four, and she wasn't a psychology student, and there was a starship captain sitting next to her. And she turned her head to meet her husband's eyes, and her expression changed -- softened, and then it was as though he'd never seen her before. She looked down and her smile went shy, and Will knew that she was happier than he'd ever seen her.

"How are you feeling?" Picard's voice matched her expression.

"Morning sickness has become afternoon sickness, and I'm afraid the headache is back. I'm going to take a nap." This time she gave her husband a kiss on the cheek, and rose from the couch. "I'll see you later, Will."

"Much later," Picard said, watching her leave the room. "She's not sleeping very well."

"I hope she feels better." Will took another sip of the bourbon -- it wasn't bad, for replicated synthehol. "So have you decided on a second officer?"

"Have you heard of an android named Data?"

"Yes -- a lieutenant-commander," Will exclaimed. "Do you think that's a good idea? An android?"

"He's not like any other android. I think he'll be an excellent operations manager. He'll be here tomorrow."

"What about the security officer -- Yar?"

They reviewed senior staff, and then they were looking at padds, at names of potential chief engineers. And suddenly the toddler was back -- she had approached silently while Will scanned names, and her hands on his knee startled him. He glanced down at the wide dark eyes and smiled -- she responded with a grin that revealed perfect little lines of teeth. 

"Hieeeeeeeeee," she cried. 

"Evelyn," Picard summoned, and she toddled around the end of the coffee table to climb up with her father.

"I should go, have a look at my quarters and arrange to transfer my things," Will said.

"Yes."

"Unless you have reservations?"

They gazed at each other for a short time, with Evelyn playing with a small stuffed animal next to Picard. "No reservations. I expect, like so many things, that time will take care of any remaining echoes of the past. The future is more my concern, and I believe we are alike in being oriented to moving in that direction."

As Will rose to go, Evelyn looked up and grinned again. "Byeeeeeeee."

"Good bye, Evelyn." 

Will left the captain's quarters, and strolled along the corridor on deck nine. He thought about the look on Deanna's face, how happy they both were, and sighed heavily. When he entered the turbolift there were two lieutenants inside, both female, both smiling appreciatively at him.

"Good afternoon," he said. "Computer, deck seven."

"Are you our first officer?" the brunette said.

"Commander William Riker, at your service," he replied with a grin. "And you are?"

"Lieutenant Arla Raleigh, and Lieutenant Grace Lyman," the blonde said. "We're going to Ten Forward. Want to come along?"

"I think I would like that," he said. "I mean -- it's important for a first officer to know the crew, and I have to start somewhere."

 


End file.
